Strategies for Long Projects(benbrostoff.github.io) |
Strategies for Long Projects(benbrostoff.github.io) |
A lot of this rings true to my experiences as well, particularly being defensive about time and commitments. Really, most of the authors points had me kind of nodding along.
On the other hand, I somewhat feel what the author is getting at with optimism, but I'm not sure optimism is the right word for what makes me productive. It's difficult to put into words, but I do agree there is a kind of strange attitude adjustment that has to happen.
You need to reach a point where you decide you're going to do something, regardless of what problems come up, or how long it takes. There are problems in my own projects that I know I'll need to solve, and I don't currently know the solutions, but I know I'll come up with solutions for them, and whatever I need to do to pragmatically solve them will just need to happen. It's less about me feeling confident in myself, and more just saying, "well, I care about the outcome, and I don't care what I need to figure out in order to get there." I know I'll put in the time, or find the resources, or learn, or give up whatever I need to give up to make it happen.
I don't know if I'd call that optimism though. It almost feels a bit more like stubbornness, or defiance. It's not just an assumption that things are going to work out.
> Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective). This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie on the path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization.
I've realized on many occasions that I was being put off spending time on projects because of all the stuff I could think of that would take even more time, all the difficult problems I could already see or was sure to find along the way. It's paralyzing. But the effect of crossing off items on the eternal to-do list, the sense of progress, is strong enough to keep me going.
Maybe that's what the author describes as 'optimism': not getting paralyzed by bears down the road, so you can keep the positive feedback from progress going?
This would be a nice post if it was titled "Strategies for Quick Projects". I'm on year 8 of what is likely a life-long project (at a pace that is doubling annually). That's a fairly long project, but far from the longest. The Manhattan Project, the Human Genome Project, the Apollo project. The Shuttle program. The National Cathedral. These are long projects. They're big too. There are other long projects which might be considered "small". Learning violin is a long, small project. Cataloging all the species of flora and fauna on an island is a long, small-ish project. Cataloging all the microbiota on that island would be a medium-big project. Cataloging all the microbiota on a continent would outstrip the Human Genome Project by a factor of 100.
I think it's subjective anyway. Notre-Dame or the Sagrada Familia were / are being built in more than a hundred years, so the dozen of years of Apollo could be qualified as short in comparison.
When reading "long", it can only be subjective so there is no point of arguing.
This is semantic hair-splitting a bit, but those things aren't "projects". They're portfolios of programs that are made up of lots of individual projects.
That counts as "long"?
I particularly found this point of view interesting, would love to hear some examples of it:
> Moreover, I believe that choosing to feel something can make you feel that way even if the feeling is artificially manufactured. What I mean by this is that when someone asks us to label how we feel, the label we select is based on how we physically feel at the moment. But what if you said the exact opposite of how you actually felt? Is it possible the re-labeling could become reality? This seems absurd on the face of it, but my experience has been that re-labeling works and causes an actual physical response.
We're all in some kind of delusion as our storytelling minds build up the world around us (and us in it). I believe the author is referring to crafting our delusions in some intentional way (although I don't have great examples myself of this working).
I guess you need to find a sweet spot between tension and relaxation. Too tense and you end up being burned out. Too relaxed and you quit because it won't be interesting or challenging enough.
Your mind needs a rest too to serve you (and your projects) well. So by taking a rest and forgetting the project for a while, you actually help the project as well!
That’s part of how the author can have 3 long-term projects at once— no single project is taking up all of his attention. You can make surprising progress if you set aside a single 3-4 hour session each week, and still have time for everything else.
I've been struggling to work full time on a project for a few years now. I think it's the most important thing that I can do with my life now, so I refuse to let go for any reason. (I'm a US citizen literally starving in Colombia.)
I can't get traction the way I've been going, so I have to make radical changes immediately. Thanks for the list.
1. Tenacity (check!)
2. Logging (need a lot of improvement. where has all my time gone?!)
3. Compounding (I fear I'll be contemplating this one all day now)
4. Defending your time (prob need to back off on this one; too lonely)
I need to do my thing more openly instead of hiding out with my head down; maybe I would have never done that first project reboot, and I'd have customers by now!
Making deadlines tight for the sake of it makes no sense other than to keep you working longer. Not that that's a bad thing, but if you end up missing the deadline, well... I don't know what you would think then.
I think, "go! go! go!"... and then fuck around with small details until I go broke. I need way more awareness of the big picture.
It's so hard to balance. I need a partner, but I've really isolated myself at this point :(
https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-crawlers https://youtu.be/N1WvVRavXsI?t=60
Incremental progress and speed seem slow (1 mph), but eventually you will get into position for launch.
This has helped me understand how weight and physical constraints (these == time commitments to a primary project, family, sleep, etc.) impact velocity on where you start from getting to an eventual goal (starting a side project and coming to release, launch, etc.). Some things just can't travel faster than 1 mph due to external constraints.
Guess it's one of those things no one seems to be able to figure out since most of these pieces never really describe, in detail, what their process actually is for something that's unsolvable for them.
Also, I would have liked this post to touch on “what do you do when things actually fall apart” too.
I also work on my project, sometimes whole day, or two, sometimes even a week.. it depends on my clients' requirements and how skillful I was in planning the time.
It took me some years to get there, however. And now with kids it gets even more challenging.
Regarding socializing, it is true, my circle is now rather small, but I take it as a temporary state.
Either way, most of it is negative. I can't think of much good coming out of missing a deadline other than it makes you look incompetent.
Even Elon doesn't seem to care about why he misses deadlines because he keeps making them.