Ask HN: Why do I lose interest in every project after 6 months?

[bdickason]

It's like clockwork.

I'll get HYPER-interested in something, to the point that I can't stop talking about it or thinking about it nonstop. I go through 'buildout' if it's a project, 'level up' if it's a game, or even went down the road of DJing and playing in a band.

Each time, after roughly 6 months, I burn out and end up moving on to something new with little desire to pursue my last project.

I'm extremely worried about this as I've been working passionately on a new startup idea with some friends and we're nearing the 2 month mark.

How can I stay enthusiastic?

[webwright]

To keep your "level up" analogy going...

The first few levels of a startup are EASY. You're GOOD at this stuff. Ideation, deploying prototypes, early design work, etc. You're GOOD at it. You blow through these levels like a pro and you get the emotional reward.

Then you hit the wall where you SUCK. It's working, but not as well as you've hoped. There are more questions than answers. The next level is a long ways away, so you don't get the "rush of success" for a long time. You're not even sure you can COMPLETE THIS LEVEL AT ALL.

So why not find a new game? Rinse, repeat.

The problem seems two-fold. You might have unrealistic ideas about what startups do. Second, founders fight through shit like this because their motivation is bigger than just getting the "level rush". What's your motivation?

There are all sorts of ways to "hack" yourself here.

1) VERY publicly declare that this project isn't a project-- it's your life.

2) Commit to your friends that you'll run a specific number of experiments (the ones necessary to prove out the model as worth pursuing).

Another thing to consider is to just embrace it. How many have you punted? My dad played bongos in a jazz band, drove a cab, sold veterinary drugs, did electrical work, etc., until he was about 35. He then went on to build companies and ended up in executive management for the last 10 years of his career. You may have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prince... And it MIGHT not be the right decision to force yourself into long toad makeout sessions if it doesn't feel right (okay, that's my best analogy ever).

[X-Istence]

clap that analogy was absolutely fantastic.

What I have found personally that keeps me going is knowing that other people appreciate the work I have done, so I release early and often in an attempt to get other people riled up as well and to also get them working on the project if at all possible. So number 2 is definitely a good point.

[petewarden]

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Enthusiasm, like optimism, is a choice rather something that just happens to you. It requires a lot of forethought (what do I really care about?) and continual maintenance. You need to spend time discovering and remembering the fascinating parts of whatever you're doing, and the end-results you're shooting for.

I was stuck in an awful job stocking a supermarket, with no alternatives I could find. I realized I had a choice about how I approached it, I could either mope around all day or find something I liked about it. I discovered my OCD side really appreciated looking down a whole aisle and seeing every can perfectly stacked with the labels aligned. It still makes me smile thinking about it, and left me enthusiastic enough to stick with that job for years, get through college and move onto other goals.

[ryanisinallofus]

This is the perfect answer the original post. I wish I could close the thread and promote this all the way to the top.

I suffer from this same issue as the original poster and tried agency world to cure it. Projects rarely last long enough to get sick of them. However what really works is just finding something that makes you happy in whatever you are doing.

[doki_pen]

Great advice. I still look back fondly on my days of cooking. There were very bad things about it, but working hard and doing a good job was not one of them. I saw people around me deciding that the job was beneath them and feeling miserable all day and decided I would _never_ be that way. Good work is it's own reward. Take pride in it.

[jacquesm]

I jokingly called it 'tass' (toddlers attention span syndrome), and I've had it since I was three.

Buying toys for me was according to my family the stuff of nightmares. I'd play with something for 3 minutes really excited, then see if it could be taken apart and if not toss it aside and never look at it again. And the ones that I could take apart suffered the same lot, only in bits and pieces.

It took me a long long time to outgrow that, I still have to be very careful when I am exposed to something new and shiny to stay away from screwdrivers.

In software projects I have much the same tendency, as long as it is challenging, new and I can learn it's ok. But woe the day the last bolt is screwed on to the carriage, that's when I'm in real danger to lose interest. Building is great, maintaining is not, so I try to build things in a way that they are as maintenance free as possible (which is good anyway).

If the money would be the motivating factor (or the 'desire to change the world' as some other commenter put it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1369566), then it would be easy to keep going.

But for me the driving force is to learn, and it's hard to keep 'learning' the same stuff over and over again. So I try to frame my days and the things I have to do that are not exactly 'new' in terms of what I will learn from them, and if I can then I can usually do the job in a reasonable time.

If not, I have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills.

[bdickason]

Interesting. I really like the point about building things to be maintenance free. Good call.

The motivating factor for me is more in the 'change the world' idea, and I think that learning is definitely a key motivator for me. If I'm not learning, and I'm just "executing" what I've learned, I get stuck.

Can you give an example of how you've made things (preferably software!) maintenance-free?

[mattyfo]

I've always had this problem but a few months ago I borrowed a poster from my dad (career Marine, epitome of focused, determined and successful) and it's helped me keep my focus. It gets me out the door to run (I've never worked out before), it helps me pick up the statistics books I have (course I failed in college) and and it reminds me to do my best at work everyday. It's quickly becoming my mantra and maybe it will help you but you might also find it to be extremely trite so take this for what it is.

CONSISTENCY By George H. Allen (Only NFL coach to never have a losing season)

Consistency is the truest measure of performance. Almost anyone can have a great day, or even a good year, but true success is the ability to perform day in and day out, year after year, under all kinds of conditions. Inconsistency will win some of the time; consistency will win most of the time.

Consistency requires concentration, determination, and repetition.

To be at your best all the time, you must: Take nothing for granted. If you aren’t “up” every day, some thing, or someone, will knock you down. Take pride in what you do. The things you do well are the things you enjoy doing. Take setbacks in stride. Don’t brood over reverses; learn from them. Take calculated chances. To win something, you must risk something. Take work home. To get ahead, plan ahead. Take the extra lap. Condition yourself for the long run. The tested can always take it. Don’t take “no” for an answer. You can do what you believe you can do.

PS…Celebrate after the victory!

[edw519]

Find a customer whose hair is on fire. They won't let you lose interest until you solve their problem.

The problem is that your projects are things you're interested in and you're obviously too easy on yourself. Do something for someone else. The meaning you'll be making together will keep you interested until you finish, no matter how long it takes.

[bdickason]

I definitely have those customers and although I am 100% CSR oriented to start, I end up snubbing them a few months in because they become so pushy.

[jheriko]

I have this same problem often - maybe not even six months. I have several techniques that seem to work to combat this well

1. When you do have the enthusiasm for the project try to do the "dull" or "chore" work first. That way the fun and exciting bit will keep you going for longer - they lose their motivational benefits once they are done after all.

2. Make sure you can come back to the project and work on it later - this way taking a two week break won't be fatal, and it is necessary to take breaks to refresh your enthusiasm for the project and avoid burnout. Some of this is design, some is management and some of it is attitude.

3. Make promises to other people. I find it so much easier to finish something that I told someone I would finish for them, than something I want to make for myself. Be careful not to promise too much though...

4. Learn how to force yourself to do work. I find when I start doing even a small piece of work on a project, a good proportion of the time the rest of the project will "draw me in" and I end up doing more than I intended.

Hope it helps. :)

[bdickason]

Agreed, this is great advice. I tend to not do #1 because of my non-linear approach to problem solving.. which basically means I try to solve whatever I see as the biggest problem rather than the 'easiest' or 'most boring.' I'll try this one next week :)

On #2, I've definitely seen this happen for me but it's usually more like 2-3 months later. I wonder how I'd feel after a true two week break ala a vacation with no internet. I bet that would be phenomenal.

[da5e]

Thanks for this, jheriko. Lots of real-world wisdom in this comment. 1. "Don't eat dessert first." 2. Interruptible persistence. Hemingway stopped writing for the day in the middle of a sentence. 3. Promise but don't over promise. 4. Nibble at the project.

[patio11]

Could it be a fear of success? Or of stretching outside of your comfort zone? Or of the long stretch of hard work after the bloom is off the rose?

You're better informed about your psyche than I am, but I suggest pacing yourself, staying grounded to the other things in life which matter to you in addition to this startup, and carrying it through to completion.

[bdickason]

I don't know if it's fear of success, but I think the stretch of hard work is a good one. Perhaps it's also a result of an unrealistic roadmap?

i.e. I want A, B, and C to happen in X amount of time (hoping i can use that description w/ all the nerds here) and we're barely scratching the surface of A.

I think that accepting that it take 6 months to get anything decent STARTED is a good place to start :)

[techiferous]

There are many possibilities:

* After a few months, the hardest parts of the problem have been solved. Since your skill level exceeds the challenge, boredom results. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

* Perhaps you are not motivated by the actual task, but by the sense of mastery. Once you've mastered a challenge, you are satisfied because you've learned something about yourself: I can do that! The project still requires work to be done, but you're interested in pursuing some other new challenge that validates your sense of self-mastery.

* If you're cycling, perhaps you have a touch of bipolar.

* Perhaps "How can I stay enthusiastic?" is the wrong question. Maybe "How can I persevere when my enthusiasm inevitably wanes?" Expecting to always be enthusiastic is unrealistic.

[bdickason]

The last is definitely the case. It's just a question of persevering.

[taphangum]

Same thing happens to me. After about a month it takes discipline to just continue. You start doubting the idea, thinking its stupid or wont work (mostly subconciously) and thats what makes you lose interest. My advice would be to keep searching out things that will make you believe (subconciously) that what you are doing WILL work. I do research, read up, make plans, etc.

If you find that this does'nt work. Maybe your brain is telling you something.......

[bdickason]

I definitely agree with you on the 'doubt' issue. Reading up on things, talking to customers, and other things like this tend to work for a short week or so, but really I've never find something to truly revitalize me on an idea.

The brain could be telling me something, but I would argue that many of the ideas were 'great' and nothing is going to be successful if you only see it through to 6 months :\

[kyro]

I'm exactly the same way and it's been irritating me since I can remember. I think the issue for me is being so convinced initially that the idea I'm executing is my ticket to billionaire-dom, that by the time a product is built and the real work is required, finding customers, reality sets in that maybe your idea isn't as amazing as you once thought, lowering my level enthusiasm and making me less willing to really put in the effort to see if the idea has a chance.

I don't know how to fix it, but what has helped is waiting some time after I've come up with an idea to let whatever get-rich giddy emotions subside, allowing me to arrive at more realistic projections of how far an idea can be taken (with proper research of course). And like edw519 says, find a customer that is really interested in your idea. Having that validation from an already-acquired customer will probably give you the motivation to continue since your idea has been validated by someone other than you.

[gvb]

It sounds like you are stopping at the first 90 percent.

"It is a cliché in our business that the first 90 percent of the work is easy, the second 90 percent wears you down, and the last 90 percent - the attention to detail - makes a good product."

— The Graphing Calculator Story http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

[maxklein]

Try doing two things at the same time. Let one be the one you are hyper-excited about, but that is not going to make money. Let the other be the "work" that you carefully plan through and slowly work through. You can change the other project every 6 months, but let the main thing just be slowly worked through.

[pedalpete]

I'm normally a big fan of your comments maxklein, but I would advise to exercise a bit if caution with this one.

I suffer from the same problem (haven't found a solution yet), and I've done the 'get started on something else', but I find that I get more and more sucked into the new thing, and the old thing slides.

If it can be organized ala Google 20% time, and make sure that the overarching goals don't get in the way, then I'd say it may work, but I don't think it is for everybody.

[billswift]

It works better if you refuse to let yourself work on your enthusiastic project until you have X amount done on the boring one, that is use it as a reward for making some kind of progress on the boring one.

[nudge]

This is perfectly normal (or, at least, common). Okay, I have no idea if it's either of those things, but I know I get a very similar thing.

A few good ways to keep motivated are:

1. Know why you are doing this. If you have a clear goal in mind, you can motivate yourself towards that goal when the project itself is not motivating/stimulating/interesting (e.g. you've done the fun bits of the coding, and now have to do the non-fun parts that make it work nicely).

2. Have a clear roadmap, with milestones that are achievable every few months (or some other finite period - I think we all have different 'milestone horizons' within which the milestone is motivating). It's hard to motivate yourself with an endless project. It's easier if you know you are working towards a certain feature, a certain number of clients, a certain musical piece played well.

3. Do something else. The initial rush phase is great, and you can get a lot done in that time, but for the long haul you need to give yourself space from certain things. Make sure you're not doing the same thing all day, or spending all your free time doing it.

[bdickason]

The clear roadmap is something I've never been good at and perhaps this is a root cause.

For example, as a 'product manager' I have tons of big dreams for my product. Generally, it takes 2-3 months to get any solid prototype out there. Add on another 2-3 months of buildout to go from prototype to something people use and... by the time anything I've built in the past has reached 50k+ users, we're at least 6 months out and only touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the features that I want.

[j_baker]

Don't try to overcome your weaknesses; that is the way of madness and frustration. But I'll give you a piece of advice: great strengths are great weaknesses and vice versa.

Therefore, rather than trying to be someone you're not, learn to harness your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

Personally, I'm the same way. I'm a good project starter, but not a good finisher. Once I've gotten a project started, I'm ready to move on to something else. Guess what though? There are plenty of people out there who are great finishers, but can't start a project to save their life. Thus, they'd be my perfect partner.

That's what you have to do: harness your strengths, but realize that you're a human being. Rather than trying to be perfect, find someone whose skills complement yours. Then you'll be unstoppable.

[bdickason]

Good call here. I actually considered finding a job where I would just 'start' projects and hand them off :P So far that doesn't exist.

[radley]

It's the common creative's problem of: what you can imagine vs. what you can produce (aka "moving the goalposts").

When you first imagine a solution, of course it's great and inspiring and you want to dive in. But after time it becomes "work." Worse, your imagination can see more to add to the project - to make it even better! Meanwhile, the longer you work on one project your imagination starts to think up solutions to unrelated topics... and those are now better because they're fresh.

The simplest cure - recognizing this is a natural paradox for the creative process. This will reduce the massive downer to comes from not chasing every dream and at the same time provide long lasting satisfaction through respecting the few you picked and stuck with.

[mdolon]

I really do feel your pain, as I have been through similar mental struggles before (and still do occasionally). One remedy I've found is to release a MVP or show your work to others, as it helps to reaffirm what you are doing isn't a complete waste of time. Launch early if you can and once people start using your it or you start making money, it's much easier to keep pushing forward. This one is more of a reminder to myself than anyone else but your product doesn't have to be absolutely perfect before you launch. Quality control is important but striving for perfection can be an impossibly long journey that can quickly lead to burn out.

[franck]

I completely agree with this. I tend to be bored by projects when I don't release the stuff I'm working on soon enough.

Knowing that your product/service is relevant, because you got early feedback, is the biggest motivation factor which helps you not to lose interest in the long run.

[jey]

What do you mean "burn out"? Does this actually mean that you get to tedious parts and stop working on it, even though it's worth finishing? Or is it not worth finishing but you feel some obligation to 'finish' for its own sake?

The real question to ask yourself is whether reward_of_finishing * probability_of_reward > costs_of_finishing. If not, you're better off taking the lessons you've learned and moving on to the next project and cutting your losses. The important thing is to not lose sight of the actual goals/rewards that you want, and asking yourself whether your actions are putting you on an effective path toward them.

[bdickason]

By 'Burn Out' I mean literally stop thinking about it subconsciously. This can even be something that I _WANT_ to continue doing, but just don't feel any motivation.

A good example: I worked with a small team on a web project for a company I worked for. We sprinted sprinted to get it out there and it grew very rapidly. Nearly 500k uniques in 3 months.

For some reason, even though I was working on it every day until launch (roughly 6 months time) and VERY adamant about fixing things for the first 2 weeks or so, I eventually just stopped browsing the site, stopped reading users' posts, and stopped responding to e-mail from them.

I found something new and I ran with it.

[percept]

I think having other people to work with is your best leverage. With a group commitment you're working to support your team instead of a less tangible goal (it works for gangs, political parties and the military).

[vdoma]

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, not all times are going to be interesting, you may lose motivation, get tired or bored, have setbacks, and want to give up, but it is only when you keep going on, that you complete the race.

A clear idea of goals and self-discipline are what separate the extra-ordinary people from the rest.

But since you're working on a startup, sometimes it's important to know when to give up rather than pursue an unsuccessful idea. But I'm sure enough people have talked about this.

[jonpaul]

This is so true. We're going through this same problem right now [http://techneur.com for the interested]. We get unmotivated and get confused thinking that we are following the wrong path. When what we need to do is to just follow our small goal, which is to bootstrap. This is far harder than I ever imagined, and this is my third time around! First two were failures.

[mickeyben]

I was having the same issue for a while.

Here's how I resolved it :

Stop working 18hrs a day on project (even if it's a startup), find other hobbies, meet people enjoy your life but be very productive in your 6-8hrs dayjob.

The thing when you're too much involve in a project is that any deception, even something taht looks ridiculous will lead you to a lost of interest and motivation.

Take a breath, take your time. A project need to mature in your head it's not a rush, it's a marathon (I know it's already have been told thousand of times).