8
domfoo
3y

TL;DR: I hate how my personal projects always get abandoned and I don't know how to handle it

My 5 Phases of a personal project:
Phase 0: Enthusiasm
> "Great! A new idea has popped up! Let's start sketching it out right away! cannot wait to start with the actual coding"

Phase 1: Setup
> "Hey, setting up the project is not difficult after all! I am so excited to implement the actual logic!"

Phase 2: Disillusion
> "Wait, this is actually way harder than it seemed at first!" Some unexpected problems occur, but no worries, that's what I want when I code, right?

Phase 3: Murphy
> Everything goes downhill: wrong compiler version, the docs of an essential library suddenly disappear on the website, problems become overwhelming

Phase 4: Abandoning
> I gradually lose interest, things like "maybe this has not been a good idea after all" or "no one would have cared anyways" come to my mind and I throw the project on GitHub and set it to private where it will rot for a year or so until I end its misery

Am I the only one who has this kind of "work flow"? I believe I'm not a dumb person but this always makes me wonder what I am doing wrong. Of course I don't expect everything to run smoothly, I know that not all projects will succeed but I this is really demotivating.
I mean I am still young and didn't receive a proper education in computer science yet. On the other hand I am not a full-time noob anymore and my expectations and ambitions are higher than that.

Does anyone have any tips on how to tackle this problem?

Comments
  • 4
  • 2
    Don't worry, this is normal (and it won't ever stop happening 🙃)
  • 2
    I recommend work vertically and get something working asap, with the smallest possible feature and simplest possible architecture. I lose motivation if I'm going from nothing real to suddenly a beta.
  • 0
    @craig939393 this sounds like good advice, thank you very much
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