I need to find out how to finish anything I start. Help me. Please.

IMO, there is only one solution: Pick one "small" project and will yourself to take it to "completion". Define completion as something you know you can attain. In this context, complete can't be "I flip the project for $3mm" as this is outside your control. You must set yourself up for success. Do one project this way and then repeat.<p>EDIT: Your IQ is not relevant to your ability to complete projects. It is possible your feelings about your high intelligence is a problem in that it keeps you from being willing to experience failure. These fears should dissipate as you incrementally do complete projects.

I had a similar problem in the past. I did some soul-searching, and realized that the projects that I undertook were huge, and would take at least a month of work in order to "finish." During this time, it was completely unusable up until the very end. Not having anything to show for hard work was demotivational.<p>The solution for me was to partition my work into hilariously small pieces. When I start a project from scratch, my first few tasks are "create the directory hierarchy," "create a repository," "Hello World," and "create exception-throwing stubs for the basic functionality." The idea is to finish early and finish often. If you can't commit a working version every day or two, you may be working on chunks that are too large.<p>It'll even sound better to your boss! Instead of saying, "no, I am not done," you can say, "I finished X,Y,Z, and W, and I am having trouble with S and R."

From "The Cult of Done Manifesto":<p>1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.<p>2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.<p>3. There is no editing stage.<p>4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.<p>5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.<p>6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.<p>7. Once you're done you can throw it away.<p>8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.<p>9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.<p>10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.<p>11. Destruction is a variant of done.<p>12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.<p>13. Done is the engine of more.<p><a href="http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-mani...</a>

a) find something very very SMALL to start with. remember: facebook had one photo, one school, and no groups on feb 4, 2004. zuck built that shit in 2 weeks. could you imagine if he tried to build what fb is now (feature wise)? Zuck actually was a lot like this from what I can gather - making lots of small random things, not always finishing them, and seeing them stick. He got through fb fairly quickly and it stuck.<p>b) find something that people can pay you for ie- your first dollar. Without making money, youre running a nonprofit, not a company. even if it's just ad space, put the ads up from the beginning. Money is a hell of a motivator.<p>c) have a targeted customer/user. you can get feedback from them and it will keep you going. seeing someone enjoy your work is a big motivator. you will feel you cant let them down.<p>d) try to have it be something that you yourself would use. it will force you to finish the project.<p>You can do this. I've been in similar spots. Forget potential failure or potential success. Just focus on finishing. Hope this helps and good luck!

Have you ever thought to undertake a psychotherapy?<p>Don't get me wrong, a lot of people consider this to be something only for "mad" people, but this is not true. When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor. Why not ask to a doctor when something in your head hurts?<p>Good psychotherapists can work miracles. I have some good friends that got some great benefits from this. They are very smart and absolutely cannot be classified as mad or even disturbed. Just normal people with some personal problems that a good "doctor of the mind" helped untangle and solve.

As somebody who works on months-long and frequently years-long projects, I have some advice.<p>Firstly, I prefer not to solve /all/ of the hard problems at the start. I try to somewhat polish and test each feature before moving to the next. Otherwise the tail end of your project will become a long slog while you have to force yourself to address all the little things you've put off. It's a massive demotivator.<p>Also, you really need to break large projects down into smaller pieces. The large project quickly becomes overwhelming and despair can set in. Instead, set out to accomplish a small piece every day. The important thing is to feel like you've done something worthwhile every day, and to have something new to look forward to tomorrow. You'll get used to feeling good about yourself at the end of the day and programming will become addictive.<p>Usually I think about what I'm going to do that day between hitting snooze or driving to work. I map out what I want to get done in my head. That'll motivate me for the day. Of course, the problem with this approach is I tend to get upset when the day's plan changes. But that's kind of a personal intensity I have to keep in check sometimes.<p>Lastly, I find I'm pretty motivated by feedback. I <i>want</i> the users to like what I've done, so if I'm having motivation problems it can help to get my programs in front of users. I like to get prototypes in the hands of the right users, ones who'll understand not to expect everything to be done, as much as possible. It'll keep me on the right track.<p>Of course, there's still those days I have to turn off the bookmarks toolbar and force myself to work on something. Usually that's caused by a roadblock or a decision I haven't yet figured out. Sometimes I have to put my feet up on the desk and just noodle for a while.<p>Anyway, a lot of this will come with more experience. (Just a guess from your post.) When I started I was overwhelmed with the possibilities and new stuff to learn that I experimented with a lot of stuff, too. Somewhere I still have a project folder filled with just "messing around" projects.<p>It doesn't matter if those are ever finished, it's an important part of learning. But that was personal stuff... You should finish the work project. :-)

At the risk of being accused of "cheating", I recommend attention medication. I am very smart, and did exceptionally well in school, but found myself unable to take even "start small" tasks to completion when not faced with an absolute, completely immutable deadline (and even then, I still handed in papers days late). I tried methods found in books, tried adjusting diet and routine, tried altering workplaces, went as far as trying to do work without an internet connection (!) -- nothing.<p>This had nothing to do with motivation. I believed strongly in open source software, and loved to code small projects, but never finished anything. I enjoyed writing, and tried no less than 5 times to start a blog. I started building electronic circuits like headphone amplifiers but abandoned them halfway through soldering. No matter how much I wanted or tried to get stuff done, it just wouldn't happen.<p>A year and a half ago I started taking Vyvanse, which is essentially a slow-release amphetamine salt compound. Since then, I've completed an excellent and productive internship at Apple, shipped two major releases of Quod Libet (an open-source music library application), and am actually making progress on a sprawling thesis, three things I would never have imagined being able to do before. I've even seen a difference socially (I can have conversations that are important to others but meaningless to me without getting bored) and emotionally (I no longer feel like a failure or a waste of potential).<p>Other people have posted many great suggestions, and by all means, try them. But also talk to a qualified psychiatrist that you trust.

OP, have you taken the myers-brigs test?<p>I'm guessing that you are an INTP like me. I am battling the same demon. :(<p>Here is a description of INTP's that I found...<p>"Many INTPs are a lot like the stereotypical absentminded professor -- dawdling, distracted, and forgetful of mundane chores, late for obligations, losing homework or library books, and generally disconnected from the business of life in the external world...A big problem for INTPs is that they are so quickly bored, and once their attention wanders, they will rarely finish the many interesting projects they start."<p><a href="http://borntoexplore.org/tempquotes.htm" rel="nofollow">http://borntoexplore.org/tempquotes.htm</a>

I don't know enough about the OP to talk directly to your problem, so I can only share a few interesting frames of mind that I have picked up along the way that help push me along.<p>There is a phenomenon from child psychiatry that has shown that parents that say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine that child's ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life. These kids believe they are intrinsically better than their peers, so they don't keep putting effort into themselves. Eventually they encounter a challenge that exceeds their initial abilities and they give up since they don't understand their performance is in their control, not baked into their God-given make-up.<p>Parents who instead say, "Wow, you put in a lot of effort," teach their children that the success is based on factors that you can control, like how much effort you put in and how prepared you are and what you do. These kids do a lot better in life.<p><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids" rel="nofollow">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...</a><p>Your problem description (high IQ, creative asset, character flaw) is in the wrong frame. Since we're talking about action, it's not about who you are, but what you do.<p>Anyway, getting things done is surprisingly simple (not easy). You look at the goal, work backwards thinking of all the things that have to get done to get to that goal, and then start doing them.<p>Another key part of being successful is to delay gratification. People who need constant positive feedback to keep moving forward don't get very far in real situations since most of life is a slog on the way to a better destination.<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...</a><p>The final thing that helps motivate action is to know where you want your life to lead. It helps give each smaller project a sense of purpose: does this move my life forward or not? If it does, it's easy to step through things.<p>Once you have a vision, it's important to continuously repeat in your head all the positive aspects of success. A lot of people focus on the failure or ever the fear of success. As I mentioned above, most real life projects are a grind on your energy and your emotional state. You have to be your own emotional support system.<p>I liked Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford where he acknowledged how death is a motivator. Life is short. It takes a long time to accomplish anything (5 years or more). So, you only get so many chances (maybe 10) to do something meaningful. You have to always ask yourself, "Am I living this day as if it's my last?"<p><a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html" rel="nofollow">http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html</a><p>I will say none of these approaches to life are intrinsic to a person. I suspect all successful people have to teach themselves these strategies along the way and they struggle with them the whole way along.

First ask yourself: why is finishing so important? You only need to "finish" if there's positive utility from finishing. If you're just working on some project for fun, and you've already learned a lot from it and have no real gain from finishing it, why bother? The important thing is to not let yourself quit when there <i>is</i> more utility in finishing than stopping. That would be a problem, but don't berate yourself to finish things for the sake of finishing. Just be constantly self-critical/introspective and aware of the possible outcomes and their expected utility, and be honest with yourself about your reasons for "quitting" or "finishing".

Find a partner to work with.<p>Another comment mentions finding a partner who can finish your work, but personally I think that's horrible advice.<p>The main things are sharing workload and working as peers. Review each others code, do <i>some</i> pair-programming even if it seems a waste of time to you (or the other person). Feedback and collaboration create action which moves your project forward.<p>Explain to your partner that finishing is not exactly one of your strengths. They're bound to have weaknesses too, ask them about that and find a way to help them with theirs. For yours, when you find yourself zoning out, getting bored, reading HN, etc, get your partner to do some pair-programming (or testing, documenting, researching, whatever) to get you back on track.<p>Forget about personality tests, medication and whatnot. Working with a partner will teach you the behavioral patterns you need and a lot more besides.

I could have written your post a year ago. I realized I needed to tackle this issue because it was affecting me both personally and professionally. The first thing to realize is that not all projects warrant finishing. I think a project is worth doing if it falls into one or more of these three categories:<p>1. It pays the bills.<p>2. It's fun.<p>3. It's essential to your health and well-being.<p>You need to make a living and have fun, but even those should not interfere with your personal welfare. Don't be afraid to let your interests lead you to a more satisfying career path, even if that means leaving the work behind for someone else to finish (or not). And no matter what you do, don't neglect your physical health, because you'll need it to truly enjoy any of your long-term gains.<p>Also learn to say "No" to others and yourself. Some people accumulate projects like three-legged chairs on trash day. Is it really worth the time and effort? You can't solve everyone's problems and you've discovered that hoarding just clutters up your life. If you're going to dumpster-dive for projects, stick to bright shiny things, stuff that tastes good, or anything that brings easy cash at the pawn shop (metaphorically speaking). Most of the other junk in there is just that: ideas not worth keeping.

I find it helpful to make lists for myself. Checking things off of a list always feels like progress, which itself is a motivator.<p>To take a real life example- when I was doing iPhone apps, I noticed that a common pattern for me was to lose interest/motivation when all of the ugly details began to emerge from what initially seemed like a simple weekend project.<p>My way of dealing with this was to always keep a prioritized list of the absolute minimum features I needed in order to ship it. It's always easy to get a little off-track while investigating ideas, so I tried to focus on what the absolute most important aspects were. You can always work on a 2.0 after you ship 1.0, so try to focus on the most important aspects without getting side-tracked by non-essentials.

This is a coincidence :), today I started thinking about writing a essay on this subject (I have the same problem). The idea for the solution I am going to try came directly from Paul Graham's recent interview on Mixergy. In it he said we look for athletes and not Wimps.<p><pre><code> PG: ... We say "how do we recognize more people like that?" And, there are start ups that we were fooled by and we think "how do we stop being fooled in the future?", you know? ... Andrew: Okay, what about the bad ones? What have you noticed that is disastrous? What kind of people? PG: Wimps. Andrew: Wimps? PG: Yea. </code></pre> Okay so the problem is I'm a wimp when it comes to finishing stuff, how do I change this? In another part of the interview PG mentions he looks for athletes when taking applicants for YC. (I cant find this in the transcript? but I'm almost positive he said this.)<p>So my solution is to run/hike <a href="http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/U/A/bishoppeak.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/U/A/bishoppeak.jpg</a> this hill on a daily basis, in hopes of making my self not a wimp. I started today and hope to continue this. My plan is to make it to the top on even days and on odd days I'll do it half way.

Things that seem to work for me:<p>A) try to get the projects to be as minimal as possible. perhaps you are avoiding finishing them because they don't need the finishing work? relentlessly try to remove as much as possible in order to ship.<p>B) get things shipped. social feedback and pressure work wonders for motivation.<p>C) write things to do with a given project on cards, and put the cards out in front of you. as you do the thing, you retire the card to the retired pile. watch it stack up.<p>D) draw a 2 x 4 grid on a piece of paper and write things that have to be done in the grid squares. as you finish each one, cross it out and put a new item underneath it. when the sheet gets too messy, rewrite it.

Just a hunch, but you wouldn't happen to have ADD, would you? You might want to get that checked.<p>Also, the Internet kind of amplifies the ADD-like tendencies in us all because there are just so many opportunities it can provide for us all.<p>But second to these would be that you might just be wanting to get things a little too perfect. This is very, very good, but also sometimes you just need to cut the cord, open up your support channel, mark it as beta in an extended period, and just work out the bugs as they go. Oh, and unlike Microsoft -- actually <i>read</i> those bug and problem reports and take them seriously.

You must be merciless with yourself. Select the most important project, get a piece of paper and write down everything that needs to be done in bullet points. Write down the minimum and maximum time you believe each should take. Figure out the maximum amount of time you can work each day (10 hours is long term, every day sustainable rate for me, doing more imho leads to diminishing returns). Do the same time evaluation for every other important project and then reevaluate which is truly the most critical. Work on that critical project only until it is done, mercilessly without deviation.

When starting a project find a GOOD partner. Give yourself milestones to achieve and share tasks. Use a bottom-up methodology.<p>No project is actually done. Each milestone must be usable. Keep this in mind.<p>Don't feel bad if you don't terminate a projet. Failure is ok but don't stop there, start a new project, again and again... until success!

I'm proud to say that I've <i>never</i> finished a project. If you're looking for the point in time when you'll say "there, now that project has everything finished", it won't come. Instead, I recommend learning to be satisfied with incompletion, because that's all anything you'll ever do will be.

I have the same problem. The <i>only</i> thing I have found that actually works is to not let myself start another project until I finish the current one. When I need a change I can do general maintenance or read in something, but no new projects. When I can keep to this it works.

I've never really 'finished' anything either. I think the main thing is to make sure you are making progress, moving forward, and improving, rather than trying to 'finish'.

It's all in the head m8. Volition and longevity are difficult to cultivate, to create something takes patience, focus, and dedication. Start out by starting every morning right - I wake up at 6AM (or earlier), immediately take <i>two</i> hot-cold showers, take adrenal supplements (to help with mid-day drowsiness), eat an apple (every morning) and I <i>meditate</i>.<p>This simple routine, everyday, has proven to boost my energy and willpower throughout the day and into the near future. It has everything to do with doing something that <i>requires</i> willpower but isn't related to "projects". I've noticed ever since the hot-cold showers that my mettle is considerably more developed.<p>I highly recommend meditation, that is one of the keys IMHO. It really sharpens your mind - day dreaming is a form of meditation, you don't have to behave like a buddhist monk to meditate. I typically just sit in a comfy chair, close my eyes, and do one of two meditations: either a no-mind meditation (no thought) or a visualization meditation.

I can relate completely.<p>After a decade and a bit hammering away at projects, and probably tens of thousands of great ideas in my head that never happened... I now, regardless of other work, pick <i>one</i> task for the day that I intend to complete. Usually work related, sometimes related to an ongoing project at work, sometimes a personal goal at work, sometimes something completely different - but I set it, and finish it, at almost all costs.<p>It doesn't have to be big... but you end the day with a sense of completion that you set out to do something, and did it... and at the end of the week, you did 7 things. This becomes natural, and feeds on itself, making you feel better and better and less stressed out about not completing things. As time goes on, I notice I am just naturally getting better and better at picking what those goals are until they become mostly strategic and to my benefit.

Apart from the excellent advice jhancock and others gave (pick something small and finish it), I wanted to say that reading your post I realized there is another practical solution to the same problem: in the work I do, finishing doesn't make sense.<p>I write custom software for a few clients. They're developed continuously, without any hint of them ever being done. The catch is that since very very early they're "working". "Working" is a concept much more useful to me then "finished". Working means it does useful stuff for the people using it. Will there be more development? Sure. Does it matter? Nope.<p>The only such project I can consider finished is one in which the client company was bought by a bigger company, which came with its own software solution. All development stopped (eventually), but the software is still up and running, used occasionally for its database.

hire people... I just had that problem... I couldn't finish any project, but I knwe how to do everything... I hired people, tell them how to work, micro manage them... and all I can say is that I'm quite successful...<p>Stop trying to do all by yourself... you are too valuable to spend time actually doing things...

If your strength is to be creative, maybe you are most useful at the beginning of projects. Maybe you could get someone else to finish them?<p>I have the opposite character flaw of finishing everything I start. This is not very good either because sometimes it's better to throw things away. For example I spent 4 years studying economics although I find the subject rather boring. Also the personal projects that I've started stop me from starting other personal projects which also interest me.<p>My personal project takes so much of my time that I don't work full time as a programmer. I work about 9 months, then go away 6 months and conme back to programming. If the project I am working on is not done after 9 months, another programmer takes over. This is one way in which you could get other people to finish your projects.

Plenty of people telling you how they approach this, maybe you'll coincidentally have the same cause and find a workable solution.<p>I've just started Reading PJ Eby's meta-self-help book Thinking Things Done, wherein he sets up a way of treating one's mind as a knowable predictable system and describes a generalised method for troubleshooting and fixing your own individual causes of problems i.e. what's stopping you from finishing projects, not what often stops many people.<p>It reads well so far and it feels like it addresses a lot of issues with ra-ra just-do-it believe-in-yourself-help-books, and it takes a practical geeky programmer's view on things too so I'm already very interested; but, er, only four preview chapters are out so far. Sign up to his mailing list to get them weekly as they come out.

I have the same problem, and as I recently finished a goddamn book (do you know how much work that was? I didn't. Three years. I can't believe I finished it.) I think I can speak to this.<p>1. add meds help a /lot/ as does the use of caffeine to get me through boring parts. (Caffeine, especially is best used occasionally, I've found; if I use it every day, I begin to require it for 'baseline' performance) Usually for me it has been caffeine /or/ add meds. Both together can be bad.<p>2. work with other people<p>Other people can keep you on track, and support the project when you are sagging. also, for me the social pressure to not be a drag on the team helps me push towards completion.<p>3. start a lot of projects.<p>yeah, the last sounds counterintuitive; but I find that I finish about 40% of what I start; and this correlates almost not at all with my total workload.<p>4. hang in there and keep trying. it gets easier to finish as you get older. when I was young, I finished maybe 5-10% of what I started.<p>5. setup your life so that your successes pay for your failures. For me, being a SysAdmin worked very well, as as long as shit runs, nobody is too mad at you for not finishing the awesome management system you had planned, and when shit is broken, it's an emergency, and I don't know about you, but I seem to do pretty well at dealing with emergencies (Obviously, much like caffeine, it can't be an emergency every day.)<p>Accept now that nobody else is going to be very understanding about this. working for other people will always be a rollercoaster of being hot shit when you finish your projects, and dogshit when you don't.<p>For this reason, I suggest working for yourself. If you can set yourself up as a product business rather than one that sells your hours, you will be more successful and feel better about yourself. I've managed to do that myself with prgmr.com; As long as I get it right often enough, and my failures are unfinished projects rather than production fuckups, everyone is pretty happy with me, because the unfinished projects were, well, mine. nobody was paying me for that.

Maybe you're just struggling with perfectionism or with fear of failure. I often find myself doing this when making music. I always try to make everything just like I see/hear it in my head, and if it comes short, I usually just scrap it or leave it. The good recipe for this would be, good is perfect enough. And you need to know when to admit to yourself that this is as best as you can do and move on. Same thing with programming. I ofter start thinking how would I go about solving a problem elegantly. If this takes too much time, I just go with a 'ugly' solution. I have to, or I wouldn't get much done.

Personally, when I am working on a project, I find it is easy to lose my way when I reach the point of knowing I am capable of finishing it -- even if still in planning. It interests me more to know that I could do it than actually proving it to others by completing the project.<p>I find it useful to examine what is left of the project and, GTD style, break it down into next action steps. With the remaining tasks broken down as small as possible, I find it easier to stay focused and knock things out. As others have mentioned, the motivation at this point is often social; I don't want to seem uncapable to others.

I'd also like to point out that this thread has 90+ comments now and all you had to do was ask. The same concept can be applied to pretty much anything, HN is not the only generous group out there.

Hey there, I don't know you so take my advice if it suits you.<p>I generally pick up new things very quickly which is exciting at the beginning, but then it gets to be boring after a while. Five years after graduating university, the longest job I've held has been 9 months - which I don't consider a bad thing as it's not difficult for a programmer to find work.<p>I imagine you're like me - you learn very fast and enjoy challenges. When something becomes less challenges and more monotonous, that is when you want to pack it up.<p>One thing I do for things that are important is commit to working on it for just 15 minutes a day. You would be surprised at how much just 15 minutes a day can add up to after a few weeks. This is similar to Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't break the chain" (You can google it). Every day just do a little bit more. Since you limit the time you spend, you will probably find yourself not wanting to stop after 15 minutes if it is enjoyable. But make sure to stop anyways. Waiting until the next day will allow you to retain the excitement of the project and you will be looking forward to working on it tomorrow.<p>I would also highly recommend picking up the book "Mastery" by George Leonard. I have never heard anyone describe the learning process as well as him. His word for people like you is a hacker (this book was written well before hacker became mainstream). Hackers pick up things quickly but then quit when they reach a plateau. However, plateaus are normal parts of the learning process. Mr. Leonard says that many people quit when they get to that first big plateau because they feel they are no longer making (rapid) progress. However, he says that you should enjoy the plateau. The plateau is a way of your body saying "Ok, I've learned enough for now. I need to take it all in first before I can move on to the next stage." In fact, a plateau is a way of knowing that big gains will be found just around the corner if you can persist. If you're spiritual, you might think of plateaus as a test to see how much you really want to attain your goal.<p>Definitely, check that book out. It's very concise and you can read it in a couple hours.<p>And don't be so hard on yourself. Most people are exactly like you - it's easy to start things, much harder to follow through. Why do you think New Year's Resolutions are mostly a joke?

<i>As the man walked along the path, thinking about his life, a feeling of confusion came over him. A feeling that he knew all too well. And every time this feeling came upon him, he knew that it was a signal that his life was not in order, not running smoothly. He had experienced this many times before. Too many times. And he was tired of it. But, left to his own means, he had yet to figure out a way to break out of this pattern. He was stuck in neutral, unable to break free. Not knowing what to do.</i><p>That's the beginning of the "Hypno-Peripheral Processing" audio course "Procrastination, A Rhythmic Approach, by Dr. Lloyd Glauberman". If you identify with those statements, I would definitely recommend you give it a try. I think it takes more than a few words of good advice to change something that's so deeply ingrained. When I tried it a few years ago, the effect was immediate, and while I wouldn't ascribe it only to that, I'm definitely much less of a procrastinator today.<p>You may have some reservations about hypnotizing yourself, but it's really not the kind you see on TV. You're actually aware of what's happening, kind of like being semi-hypnotized I guess.<p>Ironically enough, I never finished the whole course. I was too busy doing all the other things I'd been procrastinating on.

1) Have a blog<p>2) write something (do not finish!)<p>3) release it (minimally, stick it on github or something similar)<p>4) blog about it (and post the blog entry somewhere where people will see it, aka here)<p>5) guilt will drive you to make it better<p>6) work on the project and blog more about it<p>7) Either people will get interested, you'll start getting links or it won't go anywhere<p>8) decide whether to continue it or start the cycle over again at step one with a new project<p>If you do this a few times, I guarantee that you'll have a blog with readership and a better idea of what people want/wnat to work on.

When the project reaches the phase when everything is obvious, no challenges are left, but just a lot of routine work - it becomes non-interesting. I think this is normal.

I got only one thing to say, but it's the simplest and most powerful concept I have ever learnt: If you have 4 things to do, and you do them one after the other, you will be fastest than if you do them all at the same time.<p>If each task takes 1 day to do, and you do all at once, you will deliver all in 4 days. If you do them one after the other, task 1 is done on day 1, task 2 on day 2, task 3 on day 3 and last task on day 4. So 3 of 4 tasks are delivered ahead of schedule.

I have the same problem and its tough but this is not a new issue and some books/videos exist to help.<p>'Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain' <a href="http://vimeo.com/5895898" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/5895898</a><p>"The Now Habit" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/0874775043" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-G...</a><p>"The War of Art" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/0446691437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1266767432&#38;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/04...</a><p>"Linchpin" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591843162/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1266767461&#38;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/...</a><p>All of these books have one thing in common and that is getting used to shipping things. I noticed lately that while I was horrible at shipping my little pet projects I could cook and prepare meals for me and my girlfriend without worry that it tasted bad. I just cook it and good or bad we eat it. I've gotten over the fear of failure here.<p>Now I just need to get over the fear of failure for my projects.

Partner with a finisher. Focus on your skills, collude at the start on the features, and let them take over and close the project up while you start up the next.

Some tricks that I've used:<p>- Don't look at the eventual goal - it's discouraging to see the long road you have to travel to get there. Instead, focus on the little things you can do now, and make doing those things your intermediate goals.<p>- Work in short (30 - 45 minutes) bursts. Planning long marathons only makes starting work that much more difficult.<p>- I keep a small TTD text file ala GTD style to get things off my mind. I usually finish most of the things I put in there. The file contains micro-items that need to be done.<p>- Focus on getting to the "starting ritual". If I have to work on a website, for example, I just focus on starting the IDE first.<p>- Start delivering whatever portions of the project you have completed thus far. Don't worry too much about the quality of your work. Instead, simply claim that the work's in its draft or beta stage.<p>- Have a personal blog, and log every day the work you have put in towards your goals. If you didn't do anything on a day, log that. This is also a great place for you to play your own coach.<p>- Don't torment yourself over past lapses. Just resolve to start from this moment on.<p>- Look at your past accomplishments, and affirm yourself of your ability to deliver.<p>All that being said, the fundamental problem here is putting up with an immediate unpleasantness in return for a <i>potential</i> future reward. If you cannot see a reward clearly, then obviously there's not much point fretting over procrastinating. Just enjoy your present moment!<p>I also think it might be useful to have an overarching sense of mission - some grand theme - to add an element of urgency that'll keep you going.

I think the sheer number of helpful responses this post has received indicate the absolute value in the Hacker News community. If you are reading this or have commented here, I respect you -- me and you are a part of a great community.<p>In regards to this post, I can connect with you, kksm. You are certainly not alone, it's common to find yourself overwhelmed, especially if you, like myself, are ambitious and love to take advantage of opportunities.<p>Unfortunately, the downside to this type of ambition is that along with a few great things you make take up, you often take up many "bad" things. By "bad" "things" I mean tasks or projects that you are not motivated to do, or as others here have described, "do not align with your life goals and motives."<p>I want to repeat JustOnce's suggestion, diligence is critical. Diligence is the mother of success. Look at all of the responses on here--it is evidence that what you are trying to resolve is an issue many people deal with.<p>Good luck, and don't ever give up. Divide and conquer. Fight for what you love, it is my guess that you are not stupid or lacking any passion in what you do. You may simply be taking on more than you can chew.

I had a similar problem. Here's what I've figured out myself over the last two years. I unconsciously sabotaged myself because I believed I was smart and didn't want to be proven wrong. I exhibited the following behaviors:<p>* Obsessed over details because I wanted every project to reflect my brilliance. When projects turned out to be decent (but not earth shattering), I would just abandon it rather than finishing it. I didn't want to dilute my image of myself.<p>* Pulled all nighters before deadlines without doing work. The I would attribute the fact that I did poorly to lack of sleep.<p>* Didn't ask for help on projects when I actually needed it because I wanted to be considered smart. Didn't ask questions when I didn't understand something for the same reason.<p>The solution for me was to bombard myself with proof that intelligence doesn't matter. Hard work is the only thing that matters. Intelligence doesn't mean <i>anything</i> if you don't invest the time. How are you supposed to compete with someone working 100 hour weeks when you work 10? You would have to be an <i>order of magnitude</i> smarter than them, and that's just not possible.<p>So if you're anything like me, you might be trying to cultivate the perception of intelligence rather than proving your intelligence through action. Real artists ship, and real geniuses finish their projects. Don't let the fear of failure or mediocrity stop you from finishing your projects.<p>(As for the original cause of this behavior, it most certainly was what other people are pointing out. From a young age I had the idea that I was smart cultivated by my parents and my teachers. This community is full of people who received similar treatment. Having such attentive teachers was a huge benefit, but this is one negative side effect.)

I've found that I'm much more likely to complete and succeed at a given task by creating very specific goals for myself, and breaking down my goals into specific tasks. It's the same concept that I do in building software writing out stories for each feature, etc, but applied to myself.<p>For example, I have a specific goal to read 3 chapters in Godel, Escher, Bach every month until I finish the book. I'm also challenging myself in other areas of my life, like eating, running and biking, etc.<p>Most importantly, though, is that my goals are all very short-term: most of my goals are in 1 month chunks, but some are in 1 week chunks. Only very few are more, and they usually are broken up into sub-goals with 1 month chunks or less.<p>At my work, we like to create goals and tasks that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.<p>There's no way you'll finish something if you don't know how to get to the end, how long it will take you, how much effort it will require, and how it will look when you get there.

Consider some of the projects you did finish, what about those is different from the ones you don't? Realize that you have the ability to separate your thoughts and feelings about a project from your actions on a project and work on acting in a valued manner (assuming here that finishing the project is of value to you).

There's a lot of good advice here, but I'd like to offer another perspective: since you consider this a personality flaw, perhaps you should consider if the projects you choose are well suited to you.<p>As an example, would you make a better farmer or a better chef?<p>A farmer deals with many short and long term projects: choosing and planting crops that will take the entire summer to grow; looking after the soil over the course of many years by rotating his crops; planning and executing a large scale harvest in the short few weeks that the produce is ripe.<p>On the other hand, a chef thinks day to day and minute to minute. Planning a menu for next week's meal; finding the ingredients; taking orders from customers as they come in over the course of an evening.<p>Both these occupations are valuable, but require vastly different skills and mindsets. Maybe you're trying to be a farmer when you'd actually make a fantastic chef!

I think that all this advice is good. I would add to any list to find out what you want your end goal to be. When you decide what that is, make a list of smaller tasks that will accomplish your goal; like a do to list of sorts.<p>Then, complete each smaller part or your list. I tend to do the harder projects first, makng my work easier as I progress. If you are having an off day where you know you won't complete something, break it up into smaller tasks that you can complete.<p>Make sure you have enough time to complete one thing on your list so that it doesn't drag into the next day or whatever time fram you are looking at. Obviously, bigger projects may take longer than 1 day for whatever you are planning you goal to be. This way you still get a feeling of accomplishment, and you work towards something that needs to be done, even if it seems daunting at first.

Before we dig in with tons of suggestions, can you tell us what you've done to try to overcome this problem?<p>That would help a lot.

Awhile back I wrote an article on how to troubleshoot a lack of motivation: <a href="http://www.learngrowdo.com/2009/12/how-to-get-and-stay-motivated/" rel="nofollow">http://www.learngrowdo.com/2009/12/how-to-get-and-stay-motiv...</a><p>The main takeaway is that motivation has two components, Incentives and Confidence. I could offer you a million dollars to paint a realistic portrait of me, but if you haven't touched paint since kindergarten, you're not going to finish that portrait.<p>Similarly, you might have the skill to code my next iphone app for me, but you're not going to unless I offer you some kind of payment. (Please feel free to correct me on this one.)<p>Understanding what incentivizes you and where you're lacking confidence (knowledge, feedback, self-confidence) will help you understand why you're not motivated to complete your projects.

One recommendation I would make is to shift your focus from how you can accomplish the project to how best to deliver the project regardless of the person. I used to have a similar problem (and still do at times) and the reason I could always start but never finish is that I sequenced all the tasks I liked to do early in the project so at the end of the project all I had were things I didn't enjoy.<p>Now I do two things. First I look how to outsource what I can to other people - for example my sister is very detailed oriented so I pay her to do things that would bore me, like writing instructional copy, disclaimers, terms of service, etc<p>With those activities I can't get off my plate, I sequence them so I am doing fun and boring activities equally. That way I am not over-burdened with boring, tedious, or difficult tasks.<p>Make sense?

There are two ways to look at your situation. You might actually have a real flaw that is causing you to get discouraged and fail to complete things. This can be caused by a lot of things like depression, stress etc. The alternative is that not completing things is just your personality, because you are easily distracted by new ideas, so you never follow through. This is my personal problem, and I have found it quite difficult to overcome. My solution is to find someone who will work with me to keep me thinking about the project at hand, or finding a position where this type of instability is valued. According to the MBTI test, I am type ENTP, which seems to describe my behavior. I suspect you may be similar.

Coincidentally, the post and article in this current post may give you some insight:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139146" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139146</a><p>Summary: will power is a limited resource, like muscle power, than can be both exhausted and developed.

If I were to finish everything I start I'd know 1/100th of what I do. Most of the times I stop just when I realize that I have enought knowledge to be able to do it "if I just want to". And I move on. Once in a while a finish stuff just because I kind of fall in love with it or just because it's the right thing at the right time.<p>Different topic is projects I do for work, or for career. In that case, you must be finishing and in my experience nothing works better than a family to go back to in the evening. I used to procrastinate during the day and I'd have to stay at work till late to finish stuff. I don't do that anymore because I realized my wife deserved much better than that. It helped me a lot finding concentration.

For some reason I thought of this post when I read this story, so I came back to post the link: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-wr...</a><p>It's about writing fiction, but I think we can learn a lot from people who spend years holed up in a loft with a laptop typing out tens of thousands of words that may or may not ever be seen by anyone.<p>One theme that resonated with me is that you should try to get to something you can vaguely call "finished" as soon as you can: have something on the page that you can then come back and edit, refactor, tinker with. Might help. Good luck.

You need to define what 'done' means.<p>I try to create some sort of nice image in my head about how it would be if my project is ready. Then I try to recall this image if I see myself tripping off the path. Just to remember myself why I am doing something helps me a lot.<p>I usually write down the core features. I only allow myself to code something that is not on the list if I earned it by working on something on that list the same day.<p>Perhaps you should take a look into some parts of the XP (extreme programming) philosophy. One idea is that you work in iterations and that every iteration should produce something usable. In theory you could stop at any point and should have something 'finished'. In theory...

I don't know what the reddit crowd will tell you<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/b4faj/i_need_to_find_out_how_to_finish_anything_i_start/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/b4faj/i_need_to_find_o...</a><p>but with your CV <a href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHgzAaQYmIOZGdqanFjMjlfMmN3M25tY2Y4&#38;hl=en&#38;pli=1" rel="nofollow">http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHgzAaQYmIOZGdqanFjMjlfMm...</a> , you shouldn't have a problem. Maybe your work does not motivate you or you too much of a perfectionist.<p>Are you a vegetarian? Maybe you don't have enough energy? My suggestion grub a jug of coffee, order a pizza and post the Project here on Monday.

A thing that has helped me is, instead of starting to code or design, just starting a Word doc and putting all my ideas down. Sometimes you just need to get things out of your system, no matter if it's coding or writing. The advantage of writing a project outline is that it's easier to pick up later, since it's not a bunch of half-finished code. The second advantage is that it's easy to add on ideas spontaneously, since you just need to write them down instead of coding them. Third advantage is that if you ever have time to actually do a project, you have a clear outline and direction of what you need to do.<p>So try writing instead of coding.

I think you're most likely subject to some kind of procrastination. I call this and similar phenomenons "brain bugs".<p>A common pattern in that area: not finishing a project avoids any confirmation that the idea itself was bad, because the idea is not really unvalidated, as the execution isn't complete.<p>Any way to reinforce the inner confidence is helpful here. In my case, non-violent communication (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892005034" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892005034</a>) has been very helpful to understand the inners of procrastination.<p>Understanding "brain bugs" as I call them is a fascinating and rewarding road :)

I had a similar problem. The cause was simple: New projects are fun. After a while any project becomes boring and we find ourselves longing for something more interesting to work on. Our minds are good at rationalizing away unpleasantries.<p>The solution is also simple: Just do it. Treat it like a job. Understand that it's not going to be fun. Passion burns brightly and then fades away. You're going to need to make a schedule -- a routine you can build your life around. Work on the project for, say, three hours a day. Then it's just a matter of grinding out the weeks and months until your done.

It sounds like you have side projects, not products.<p>Have any of your unfinished projects actually been good products? It's one thing to have a side project and play with a new technology over the weekend- that's cool, but it isn't a product. It's like when people post 'Ask HN: Review my startup!" and it's some twitter app they threw together in a weekend. That's not a product, it's a side project. Side projects can turn into products over time, but it's usually a tough transition.<p>A product has to be marketed. A product has to have you communicating with customers. A product needs a price.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's totally normal to have a ton of unfinished experiments and stuff lying around. When you start a new project/experiment write yourself a note in your calendar in, say, 8 months to go look at it. By the time that comes around you'll either be done (and feel good about it) or think to yourself "oh <i>yeah</i> I forgot about that" and at least look through the code to critique it.<p>As for the not finishing stuff at work... That sounds more like burnout to me. If you aren't passionate about your job start looking for a new one!

The latest post on zenhabits is about bringing things to completion: <a href="http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/completion-principles/" rel="nofollow">http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/completion-principles/</a>

Set disincentives for failing to finish. For example, register the domain name for your project and buy hosting before you finish. This way, you'll have the ticking clock of hosting fees without any revenue from ads to herd you on schedule.<p>I also enlist the help of friends. I tell people about the projects that I want to finish, and I keep them up to date about them. If I slack off, they ask me "so, how's it going on that project?" One friend of mine has agreed to punch me if I don't finish one particular project.

My own experience:<p>I have more than 100 open projects in my hard drive right now. Had thousands more in older pcs and floppies that I abandoned when new technology arrived, from basic to pascal, C, java, python, ruby, etc. Right now, only in node.js I have like ten projects open.<p>So, am I worried about never finishing them? not at all.<p>I see them as learning projects, they filled an empty slot in my brain which expanded my knowledge and experience.<p>They call it 'the next shiny thing', I call it learning.<p>Look! Flusspferd!<p>- me opens another project -

First, you have to make sure you have definite and achievable goals. And you need to break down the long-range goals into short-range goals.<p>Second, you need to make sure that you're working on projects that are actually worthwhile. It's no sin to stop working on a project if it's not worth it, you need to make sure you prioritize which projects are actually worth getting done.<p>Third, you need to av~ <i>ooo, a shiny, I'll finish this later</i>

Read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. It's a very, very short read - modeled after "The Art of War".<p>The book is composed of quick strategic/tactical lessons for fighting the battle against Resistance - that ever-devious foe that draws its strengths from our weaknesses.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/0446691437" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/04...</a>

It might be as easy as modularizing your projects after the initial conceptualizing the project before beginning the programming, That second step makes starting, stopping and debugging the programming a lot easier. Break the project in small separate parts, then schedule to program each part without thinking about the larger final project. Before you know it, projects done.

<a href="http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/" rel="nofollow">http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/</a><p><a href="http://www.procrastinus.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.procrastinus.com/</a> - has some theories and treatment - <a href="http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/treatment.php" rel="nofollow">http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/treatment.ph...</a><p>Good luck.

Maybe you're not supposed to be taking these projects from start to finish. In a lot of companies, the programmer isn't the guy that does the UI web design, but the project isn't finished without both. It's OK that the programmer never finishes the project, he took the job because that's the role he wants, not to be a jack of all trades.

People aren't black and white but you might just be a starter instead of a finisher.<p>Some people are really good at starting and creating new projects up until they get the guts of the project right and then gradually lose interest.<p>Other people can't really come up with anything by themselves but given a start, will gladly work to finish it and become experts while at it.

I have a very similar problem and I've tried a lot of the solutions offered here. The only thing that works for me is to work on projects with people that have the focus and motivation that I lack. My "keep myself focused and on task" ability is very low, my "don't let other people down" ability is very high. I plan accordingly.

<a href="http://www.autistics.org/library/inertia.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.autistics.org/library/inertia.html</a>

One thing that might help is have a whiteboard in your house in a place you will frequently see it. Write the name of any project you want to finish on it. Write the name of any new projects on it. It might counteract, to some degree, the tendency to ignore projects you're bored with in favour of the new shiny project.

Rather than view things from a large project view, set achievable daily goals. Then let yourself feel the satisfaction of succeeding at your goal each day. If you get into this habit, then you'll find that a few months later you've actually created something worth having.<p>Set small goals, and celebrate success.

Break your projects down into the smallest goals that are useful. Give yourself a time frame to finish the first one. Ask yourself how much $ the first goal is worth to you, and set it aside to pay yourself. If you don't finish in time, give the $ to charity. Re-evaluate and repeat.

Same thing here, so maybe my 2 cents can help; Make three broad stages for every project (research &#38; design, implementation, knowledge transfer &#38; communication) and then undertake each phase as one project with its own challenges; that way I fool myself into finishing it.

I think you're likely a perfectionist or overly-ambitious person.<p>You need to learn to make a small project that does very little then build on that.<p>If you have a project you need to get done at work, do it by doing the dirtiest hack possible that gets it done, then improve it in steps while you have time.

Read the book _MindSet_ by Carol Dweck. I suspect it might give you some insight into your problem.

Maybe join a team for your next project. There seems to be a lot of advice to pick a small individual project (which I agree with) but it may be helpful to be part of a team to start. Stay on a team until you get a few wins and go from there.

Have you tried the nudge solution? Create a disincentive for not finishing by some deadline.<p>Note: If anyone has tried this and think its a horrible idea, please say so. I haven't personally tried it.

<a href="http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources/cirillo/ThePomodoroTechnique_v1-3.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources/cirillo/ThePomodo...</a>

My personal tip: When working really well and high, stop, just take a break, spare your time, don't get tired, so you can easily pickup your work later and continue.

Tell people you care about that you are starting a project. Keep them up to date on your progress. Your friends and your ego can be powerful motivators to finish.

Break your task into manageable chunks. Plan out the stuff so that when you finish each small chunk it feels like you've actually accomplished something.

Try adopting scrum ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)</a> ).

It might be a chemical problem for which there are no behavioral solutions. Investigate AADD and think about seeing a psychiatrist about it.

1) baby steps<p>2) read "talent is overrated" to understand why IQ is useless compared to being able to work hard for a long time

I think that this is only really a problem for people that have to do actual work. The best solution might be to move into management. Then, after you promise the project will be finished at such and such time, it will be easy to keep asking your developers why it isn't done yet.<p>Also, I have heard that Ritalin and Adderall are good for this sort of thing. Seriously. You've got to fight chemistry with chemistry.

pick a ridiculously small 'project', say 'bring my unread mail count to 0', focus on it &#38; finish it. allow yourself to feel good about it for a ridiculously small amount of time, say 'the time it takes to finish a glass champagne'. Now, pick something bigger. rinse, repeat

before you start the project create a couple of items mentioning tests that would test that the project is done. Then when you want to leave/mark project as completed while its not, run these tests (manual) if you dont pass the tests you didn't complete, complete it!

It took me about 3 days to finish reading everything here (I skimmed though, so maybe I cheated).

This advice is simply from personal experience and doesn't come from a book or article posted elsewhere:<p>There is a reason human beings gravitate towards one another. We are not meant to live, work, or play alone (though some people are better at it then others). I would suggest taking a look at how you are approaching projects from the get go. Are you tackling everything worthy of being called a "project" all by yourself?<p>You mentioned you have a track record of shame that forces you to seek help. Why are you waiting until everything is falling apart to ask for help? Have you ever tried asking someone to help you out with a project from the beginning? I don't think there has ever been a circumstance in my life where someone has asked me for help or I have asked someone else for help and the answer has been, "no".<p>That's my 20,000 feet view at what I imagine might be your issue based on the very small information I know about you. You could also look into some of the other character traits that people who DO finish projects have:<p>Organization: Are you organized? Do you stay organized throughout the project or blow your load for the first week and everything is essentially in shambles the rest of the project lifecycle?<p>Planning: This is in many cases one in the same as organization, but do you plan before hand? Do you turn that planning into a list or tasks, milestones, or any other form of breaking something big down into a bunch of smaller and easier to obtain tasks?<p>Focus: Do you over extend yourself or do you focus on one thing at a time? Again, this is very closely related to organization and planning. I've often taken on too many projects and the results are never good; things are rushed, quality lessens, and every now and then a deadline is even missed.<p>Communication: Do you talk to everyone involved in the project throughout the project lifecycle? Do you set realistic expectations? How in the know is everyone involved in the project other then you? Is your process transparent to everyone else working around you? I'd highly suggest at least doing one small thing if you change nothing about your process: Pick one person at the beginning of your project, it doesn't matter who they are (in some cases this person is your boss and expects this of you anyway), and decide you are going to update them every day/week/whatever on how you are doing with said project. Even if it's a friend, it doesn't matter, the process of doing this will really help you keep things together. It almost turns into project management therapy.<p>At the end of the day however, while all of these things are great to focus on and improve on, you can't do any of this alone. People are not weak for asking for help, they are stronger, and personally I respect them much more then the lone warrior who is either too scared or too cocky to ask for help.

Find a partner, you will be helping each other to keep things up.

Like many (most?) here, I have faced the same problem in the past and continue to. The difference is that over the past several years, I've figured out how to do it.<p>It all boils down to persistence, diligence, and work. As others have said, intelligence has nothing to do with it. Intelligence can sometimes be a negative because a) creative people often flit from idea to idea and, b) it can breed perfectionism--the killer of finishing.<p>I agree with many of the other posters (including pg) that you should start small and get a feeling for what it's like to finish. It also helps to talk well to yourself. The subconscious has a powerful sway over our feelings of self-esteem, unwitting self-sabotage, etc. Napoleon Hill and others talk about this. The self-talk can seem cheesy but it works, and completing small things gives you a foundation for this.<p>As for larger projects, there are a few important considerations. First, you must pick a project you believe in and will be willing to commit part of your life to (6 months?, 2 years?...). Next, you must be willing to put aside other ideas and projects in favor of it (mostly). As long as you are moving forward regularly, you can make exceptions, but you must have only one main project.<p>Next, you must break your project down into milestones. This is common sense and well understood if you program for a living. Each milestone has to be measurable so you can tell when you're done with it (and check it off). I know this sounds basic but the reason everyone keeps repeating it is that it works. You should also do something, however small, every day. Google Seinfeld's breaking the chain post on lifehacker for a technique to use here.<p>Finally, it helps to have a powerful motivator attached at the meta level to your project. This can be accomplished by partnering with someone. (Partnering has the benefit of helping to establish and maintain momentum. This is very important but can also be addressed through daily activity, as described above.) For me, it was hitting near bottom financially while living abroad. I had taken my family to live in Europe without the help of a company. We did it ourselves by saving and borrowing for two years--a very difficult undertaking. When this occurred, I swore to myself that I would never allow that to happen again. Every step since has been focused on the goal of financial independence. It has become an obsession. So I have a strong motivator to attach to projects. It sounds like you have a strong motivator as well. It really needs to become a daily obsession.<p>In order to feed my obsession, I read books about it and about people who have overcome similar situations. This keeps it in the forefront of my mind and week by week I'm also building a better and better knowledge base of how other people have accomplished the same thing. With this motivational force behind you, when you turn to your primary project, it's easier to move it forward a bit.<p>Surprisingly, wealth building and doing great things (building non-profits, etc.) all have very much in common. They are built by achievers. Achievers are merely people who move things forward little by little--relentlessly.

I know what you mean. I have a similar problem myself. People like us have a major flaw in our personality, we get bored way too fast. We get all excited when we have a new idea or receive a new project and put ourselves into it, but then all that energy get burned and we dump the project, usually without even realizing we did so.<p>Many times we dump a project because we get all excited about something new and the cycle starts again.<p>I wish I could tell you, and I myself, that there is a simple solution to this problem, but there isn't. You just need to stick to a current project and don't allow yourself to get dragged into a new one. Find reasons to complete the current project, try to remember why you even started working on it in the first place.<p>Another thing I suggest you should do, is list your goals. Define completion. And I suggest you leave previous projects alone, because there is no point of fighting the past, stick with the present.<p>Hope this helps.

You're either capable of completing a project, or you aren't. If you've had trouble with this your whole life, it's unlikely this will change. It's just who you are.<p>Don't be offended. It sucks, but it's reality. Some people do, some people don't.That's the way it is.<p>/awaiting mass downvotes

I used to have your problem. In 2009 I said I would make a new miniapp every month. I failed most months. I also said I would make a new mp3 (of electronic dance music) every day. I failed something like 1 out of every 3 days. However, the pressure from both projects, especially the daily mp3 project, changed my life.<p>In order to stay on point with the daily mp3 project, I bought an iPhone app called Streaks and marked an X on my calendar every day I made an mp3. Soon I was posting mp3s every day like clockwork. Since it worked so well, I started adding new calendars. I quickly had more calendars than Streaks could handle and the app slowed to a crawl, so I switched to a paper calendar on my wall and some thin Crayola markers. I now have, and have had for months, a daily real-time paper dashboard of how all my habit-generating projects are proceeding.<p>The key is to focus on generating habits rather than accomplishing goals. To understand why, consider the phenomenon of passive income. Passive income is money which comes from projects that make you money. A person who works at a job trades time for money. A person who builds passive income projects decouples time from money, and puts their time into building something which will, once built, generate money for them autonomously.<p>Every programmer should know that tight coupling leads to bad OO design. It also leads to bad business structure. Passive income wins over working for a living because you get a much more enjoyable lifestyle. Instead of working to make money, you create things, and those things make money for you.<p>In the same way that passive income gets you money on autopilot, when you focus on habits instead of goals, you accomplish your goals on autopilot. You decouple time from money with passive income; when you generate the right habits, you decouple effort from results. You put a little time in to create a passive income project, and thereafter it generates money for you; you put a little effort in to create habits, and thereafter your habit gets results for you.<p>When I got in the habit of creating mp3s every day and marking each daily mp3 on a calendar, I didn't just establish the habit of making music every day. I also established the habit of completing a tiny project every day. This is the part that changed my life. Over the past year, I have morphed from a completely disorganized person into an unusually organized one. I used to never even make a to-do list; now I have an original planning and organizing system with three separate layers. All this happened because I started by establishing the habit of completing projects.<p>When the mp3 thing started working well and I started tracking many other desired daily habits, I created a pattern of working to complete small tasks every day. The brain is a fantastic pattern-matching machine, and if you focus on creating habits, your brain will generalize out to broader things. Since I was in the habit of tracking my music and my workouts, I soon fell into the habit of tracking how often I ate the way I wanted to eat and even how often I put gas in my car. Once I had established these habits, of tracking nearly everything on paper, it became absolutely trivial to make and complete to-do lists every day, and to track my finances, my weight, and my sleep schedule on a daily basis.<p>Remember, this took me a year. But all you have to do to get started is pick one thing you really care about, more than anything else, and make a deal with yourself that you will do at least one tiny bit of work on that one thing every single day. Put that on your calendar, mark an X on the day every time, and don't break the chain. That's the Seinfeld method (google "Seinfeld Lifehacker"). If you want to expand that method to something more sophisticated like me, it will be easy to do, AFTER you have taken the time to establish this habit of completing one tiny project every single day.<p>If you do what I just told you, your problem will be solved for the rest of your life.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_syndrome" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_syndrome</a> ?