Ask HN: I am overflowing with ideas but never finish anything

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I have a lot of those unfinished projects too. I regard them as PoC's and that gives me a better feeling about it. If you want a better chance of finishing one them, then start with the parts that you regard as the least interesting and most tedious. If your initial enthousiasm survives that phase, the rest will be a lot easier.

Write down your ideas somewhere, but force yourself to not start them right away.

If after a week, two weeks, or a month, you still feel the itch / need to start them, then you can start.

This helps me.

A lot of time, having the idea sit on a list and simmer in your brain may make you decide it's not worth it to pursue.

One thing to try: Pick one idea. Book recurring time (does not have to be that long time) to work on the project. During that booked time, do something that pushes the project forward. Draw concrete UI diagrams, write real code, design a few database tables. Do not spend that time on "research".

Start by keeping those timeslots so short you must get to work quickly to finish at least one thing (artificial deadline looming there).

Finish each slot by writing a note about where to continue next. Or leave code broken or a unit test broken. Next time you come back, you should have something simple and obvious to start.

Change your focus from how to instead what you are making.

Taking what you've said at face value, you don't have a clear idea what you are doing so it seems inevitable that you would "fizzle out". You don't have a goal, you are just wandering around aimlessly with your new tools of the week.

So stop making "something", try and go make a thing instead. Make a specific goal and strive towards it.

"After a few days or weeks" that is quite pathetic dedication. In my case, it's months and years. Even a decade for one project. The problem with you and me is that we like the creative part of problem-solving. We like to think about solutions. But once we figure it out, we are bored with it and want to move on to the next challenge. And there is nothing wrong with that, that's a role that not many fit and most prefer instructions to do their job. And it can be very lucrative role to play in the industry, if you have the skill and knowledge for big and mid tech companies. So my advice is to do that - become a part of a project where you will be the architect or hire people to help you materialize your projects. That way you take your creativity and problem-solving skills and join them with the skills of people who like to code by the book.

There is plenty of literature, especially practical literature: an example can be "Eat that frog ... Stop procrastinating" from Brian Tracy. There are also related YT pieces, one sees from searching for "brian tracy procrastination".

Maybe you could benefit to refine your framework of practice (i.e., in a way, the "coaching" literature that spells out the beneficial attitudes)?

Because the direct reply would be "choice and discipline - you do things that you elected as priorities by actually doing them, "staying there" until satisfactory completion".

Used to be the same for me and in a way it still is. It's nice though to have a long-term project to deep-dive into. The last time I started a longer term project, I've set myself some sort of deadline, if I can pass this critical problem to get a first proof-of-concept after a month or two I continue. So I had a hobby project for a few years.

You quit right when it gets difficult whether through fear of failure or laziness or not having a skill set or some internal flaw you have.

Hard work is painful. Don't expect accomplishing things to be fun. Sometimes instead of asking people online how to do hard work you just need to conquer the demon inside you and do the hard work.

This is called undiagnosed ADHD.

That is a trait of ADHD. Hyperfocus until you find the next thing to hyperfocus on and then completely forget about the previous one.

The best way to deal with it* IMHO is to have a long term goal - and a reason why you want to achieve it. The reason should be chosen so that it motivates you to continue with the project. If you cannot think of a good one that will meet that requirement, then consider switching to a project that you can think of a good reason to keep you motivated. Set targets and then break it down into small tasks that are easy to track and achieve (the same as you probably do professionally). Ideally this task list should be somewhere visible, to remind you of it - along with your long term goal/reason.

edit: *it referring to the original complaint. I'm not a Psychiatrist.

I have built and released 4 webapps this year. Not more than 2 weeks (50hr) i spent on any project.

One of those got about 20k unique users when it's launched here, one got few thousand users and another one will be launched next week.

Having said that before all of this i spent a year building a mobile app which ended up abandoned after all done due to lack of confidence. After this failure i asked myself just one question "how much more time i have on this planet?" That's it . I became super productive overnight after that. I still have slow days but mostly everyday equals to 3days for me. Trying my best to cover all the lost time.

My advices are 1. Count your remaining days everyday 2. Good enough product is enough. Don't think about outcome. Just enjoy the process

I believe it’s motivation, interest and having some idea of an mvp; although a complete product of some kind is great and is the end goal, it’s best to not be overwhelmed and better to enjoy the process.

Anything worth your time will keep you motivated. Otherwise keep looking for that product or idea, you haven’t hit the big one yet.

Start the project using a new language, tool or framework that you’ve been wanting to try out or use; this will motivate you.

As you get closer to a mvp, things will get interesting. Keep the mvp achievable in a short time period; everything else that comes after are features, enhancements and tasks.

Each iteration you’ll find yourself with new ideas and tasks such as enhancements and features. Be sure to store these on something like trello. A checklist works!

Rinse repeat.

Take the comments here with a grain of salt. There's a lot of bad advice, even of the medical excuse kind.

One thing that jumps out to me is, if you can't finish why not scope it in a way you can?

Focus on making it so simple and break it down into steps so clear that you can accomplish it in one or two weekends. If you can't, make the scope and project even simpler the next time.

Once you get into the mode of simplifying the problem and the iteration, completing things becomes easier.

Don't auto diagnose anything. If you think there's a real problem go see a professional.

What I do is: write in down in a text file. Work on it a tiny bit until the idea stops looking so good.

You’re probably over-planning.

Scale back and just plan for a release in 2-4 weeks. Ignore everything else outside of what you can get done in that time frame. Drop the consideration of things like the domain and the name. Fight the urge to play with fancy scaffolding that eats productivity. Once you’ve launched, you’ll have a foundation to iterate on.

Release early, release often.

External accountability can help with this. It's one reason why building something small helps - you can get it in the hands of users more quickly. Then they want this or that and it gets you motivated.

Of course, it's hard to build something at any scale that people WANT to use. So you might find accountability to start some other way. One thing to try is to solve a problem for ONE person and make it your mission to make them happy. Maybe your mom has a problem that you could fix, or a friend. Maybe it's simple, like needing a new way of listing to-dos or groceries. But find a problem for one person and tell them you're doing it. That can help you find the motivation to finish.

Maybe it's not a problem to let your brain wonder without constraints deadlines and stress. Let it be creative. You can do this and still release something once in a while.

My solution to subclinical ADHD is to embark on a project of such ridiculous ambition and scope that it's never going to be finished anyway, where it's possible to work on different sub-projects within the larger project and still move forward.

Don't listen to people who tell you to keep your ambitions small. Small is boring and boring never gets done.

Maybe you just need a friend with business acumen.

I also must have 100s of projects that I started, built a bit, then abandoned when I got bored. But for some of them, friends and/or acquaintances later asked me to finish it for them (or their company). Staying motivated is much easier if you have a team rooting for you and excitedly asking for updates. Also, it feels fantastic to see your hobby project turn into a real product.

But business is a people's job and a team effort. So if you're more on the introverted tech side, you might need a trusted intermediaty between your problem solving skills and companies' unsolved problems.

The last 20% of any project is where 80% of the work lies. At the beginning its fun and frenetic, you can write tons of code and feel like you've made big progress. The last 20% is integrations, debugging, sometimes painful bits you had deferred to later.

What you need is discipline, not motivation. Motivation is fleeting, while important, it always runs out. Work on making a schedule and sticking to it as a goal unto itself. Make a contract with your future self and do it. Discipline is something you need to train, so expect to fail at first - but strive to improve in a structured way.

Also a note on small thing that has really helped me - don't tell anyone about your project till it is finished. I find talking about your half finished projects gives a similar sort of dopamine hit to finishing and can rob you of the gratification which would drive you to finish.

But if you don't have the interest to work on something (particular) any more, do you really want techniques or whatever to push through anyway?

I suppose it depends what the goal is - the question being asked suggests to me you want a successful side project (or even full time business?) no matter what it is, the tech it uses, etc. If that's the case, then I can't speak to motivation, but you need to pick a project based on identifying a niche, product market fit, etc., not experimenting with what's hot and sparking your interest this week.

If that's not right, then I think the question's wrong, and maybe you just need to come to terms with it being ok to experiment with things, prototype things; that they don't have to turn into an MVP that anyone else ever sees, you're just having fun/learning about things.

And even if it's a bit of both, you want the successful business, just only if you love the tech or idea, then you're still doing nothing wrong, because all these so far have not panned out in the loving it sense before they had a chance to pan out or not in the business success sense (so that's inconsequential).

What has worked for me is trying to build a product and focusing on user needs (as opposed to being a technical demo), which need not be monetized in any way.

The focus on users makes helps you in planning many aspects of the project which you may not have considered otherwise, as well as keeps you on track. (Why am I overcomplicating this, don't I just need X to work like this?)

I have exact same thing. I just gave up on trying to "fix it" and now enjoy my life with this "trait".

Ideas are worthless. As a project manager and game creator, I can see you don’t have something to achieve. You masterfully avoided the essential: WHAT ARE YOU BUILDING? To me for example, how I achieve my goals (coding, framework, design) is irrelevant, I just want to get the idea out and implement it in its finest details. Also to note, the 80 20 rule: the last 20% of the project is 80% of the build time. So, you’re focusing in the wrong things. Hope this helps, good luck!

ps: also as a side note, if you don’t focus on anything, perhaps a physical activity or job would do you good: yoga, sports.