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Tell HN: I got sick of people procrastinating. Now I tell them to Finish Shit.

52 points by g0atbutt ↗ HN
I got sick of my friends complaining about not finishing small projects. Some of them claimed they were too busy to finish writing that novel they've been thinking about for the last few years (They told me this when we were wasting time in a bar, no less). One friend told me that he wouldn't be able to start his own company because he ran out of time.

After hearing all of these people bitch and complain, I finally snapped and told them to stop talking and just "Finish Shit"!

Something strange then began to happen. People actually started to get motivated, and were finishing their shit! Books were being worked on, papers filled to form LLCs.

This exclamation turned into a mini web app idea for me. What if people could submit things they were procrastinating on, and get yelled at by complete strangers until they were motivated enough to do it?

I built a rough version of the the app at finishshit.com. To submit something you need help with, just message @finishshit on Twitter. If you're not a procrastinator, check out the site anyways. It's very therapeutic to yell at procrastinators that deserve/want it.

25 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 64.5 ms ] thread
g0atbutt
I should also mention that I'm adding features over the next couple of days, so you're not looking at the final version just yet.
systemtrigger
Finish that shit! (Couldn't resist.) I nudged a few procrastinators via Twitter too. Good fun.
sahillavingia
Does anything ever reach a final version? :D
schn
Just as an example, once an offline console game goes gold master, it usually doesn't get updated any further.
hector_ka
finishshit.com is redundant fini(sh)(sh)it

just kidding

coryl
Funny and novel, why not adopt the loseit or loseit model and make people put up money? If they complete their task, they keep the money. If they don't, it goes to charity. (Might be kinda complicated and more than you're willing to do).
g0atbutt
We're working on a "Pro Version" of the app that will be similar to what you're describing. Thanks for the suggestion!
powatom
I think it would be better just called 'finishit' - but having both domains would be the best option.
g0atbutt
Thanks for the kind words. Just made it a little bit more clear how to show up on the procrastinator list (on the web site). You just have to tweet @finishshit if you need to be yelled at.
SHOwnsYou
Make it like awesomereminders.com and people get called and bitched at until they finish their project...
rmoriz
paid prank calls for the masochists. could be a BIIIIIIIG success.
g0atbutt
That's a great idea. Do you have any more info about the technical side of awesomereminders?
SHOwnsYou
I am pretty sure he pays people to go through a list of numbers and call them to tell them how awesome they are.

At 1 call per minute (which I figure is pretty liberal for a "Hey, have you finished your shit yet?") a single person can clear 400 people per day easily.

But of course if you paid someone $10/hr to call people, your sweet spot for break even is somewhere around 350 customers before you hire someone.

lanstein
Holy shit that's a good idea. The only reason I broke up with my ex is that whenever I went into my local bar (every day), the girl would ask me

"Did you do anything about it yet?" "Did you do anything about it yet?" "Did you do anything about it yet?"

I bet getting a call every day would work extremely well, bringing the same dread as a call from a bill collector with a far more straightforward path to mitigation.

matt_s
This would need to include the voice of the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket. Or allow users to pick a voice that best suits them. I can only imagine a call like this: "What, you incompetent maggot? You couldn't finish that code because an episode of Battlestar Galactica came on.... Turn off that boob tube and start writing some code, you filthy useless piece of shit"
orblivion
I would occasionally post on the Twitter profile without @replying to anybody to remind us you exist.
binomial
This is a great idea, and I've been thinking of something similar. Some people, including me, work better when there's someone waiting for the work with some deadline. This works out badly if you're working on your own thing, but people like this can be very productive under a good "boss".

So my idea was a web app where people could sign up to be "bosses", and you'd have some karma system to figure out who the good bosses are, matching them up to the "employees" who sign up to get bossed around to do the tasks they've set for themselves. Now, you'd have to put in measures to make sure bosses don't get abusive (make it part of the karma system I guess), ways to match up people with their boss, etc. But it seems like a neat idea that might just work. I just don't know if you could find enough people who like being a good boss (or at least like getting the karma points associated with good bossing), as well as enough people who'd sign up to be bossed around.

cmbanker
A literal 'whack on the head'... Inspiring!
csomar
rescue time helped me well. I went from 0.16 to 0.7 in 3 months. I really don't know how it measures my productivity but I cared about rising the number. This month, I may get 0.8.

I finished lot of work comparing to the past, rescue time was a reminder that "Hey, a month just gone, what did you do? Oh, sh*t there wasn't enough time!". It turns out to be false, my productivity just wasn't at top. Now I'm starting to run out of time, really!