Work on easier parts when you feel less inspired.

On 7/11/2017 at 4:49 AM, Hodgman said:

that attitude is really toxic towards people with mood disorders. It's hurtful advice.

If I offended or hurt anyone with my words, I am deeply sorry. I had no clue if someone here had a mood disorder (and didn't mean to omit the possibility of mood disorders). In my defense, nothing I say can ever be true for everyone at every time in every endeavor. (Blanket statement: no blanket statement ever covers everything.) There's an exception to every rule (even this one). Sometimes I try to acknowledge that truism when making a statement - but it usually just overcomplicates the matter, so most of the time I leave such disclaimers out.

On 7/9/2017 at 10:14 AM, Tom Sloper said:

If you need motivation for a personal project, don't bother. Do something else until you are motivated.

I don't follow my own advice all the time. One thing that motivates me is time pressure. I do some of my best work when I know something is coming due tomorrow. Of course, personal projects don't come with due dates, so that isn't always applicable.

I'm absolutely terrible at finding motivation on my own really for things - I mean deadlines I can work to like they are nothing and pump out a lot of great stuff very quickly.. love having deadlines. But can't really set a deadline on myself... cause it just never gets stuck to, so one of the biggest things that im working on at the moment to push motivation is getting other people involved for deadline purposes.

Like if you have friends that code etc or artists who you could get to work with, or even people to just test the product, going to these (even if its just 1 person) and giving them dates you will have new features for / new things for them to test.

Its near enough to just setting a deadline for yourself, except you actually have someone there to help enforce it, or a couple of people depending on how many you get involved plus added benefit is you end up with several testers ;o

I will grant you cant always do that, but on hobby projects they dont tend to be top secret to a point you cant even get friends to test them 

I tried working on this at work. The time restraint of lunch seems to be working for now. I'll see how I can apply everything else. I really want to keep this going. 

1. Have constant working hours (a specific time of day)

2. Have a deadline (actually several deadlines for different stages of the project)

3. Release as soon as possible (releasing your first game does miracles to motivation :D)

I always found the Pomodoro technique worked well on me. The simple way to describe it is "set a timer for 25 minutes, work for that time, and then take a 5 minute break. Repeat."

For some reason, the promise of the work being time-limited helps get me into the mood for working; and at the end of 25 minutes, I often don't even want to stop anyway.

I have two kids in age of range 3 - 7, so there are distractions all the time - doing stuff on weekends are only possible when i am fully alone, which do not happen a lot.

Therefore most of the time i do private projects at 8 pm after the work when the kids are at least in the process of sleeping. But this may get interrupted with other distractions, like showing movies, playing games, housework, etc. Especially playing games kills a lot time... but well its fun... Maybe i should just uninstall all games from my dev-machine...

Regards motivation, i lose this very fast when i hang on problems for too long. This increases expotentially when there are things which dont work regardless what i do. This is the reason why i never finished a single game since i started programming over 20 years ago, but i can make prototypes at least.. At work this seems to not happen to me, i just sit down and figure out a solution always. But there i have much more time and can focus much better.

In addition when i code i do it for much too long - most until midnight and this is very bad for my health, getting not much sleep. Therefore the idea from Kylotan seems great, i will try that.

On 09/07/2017 at 4:59 PM, LAURENT* said:

What I work on personal projects I work on them whenever I feel like it. I want to change that habit but it hasn't been easy.

 

Don't throw all the work right away! Your R-mode brain (background brain processes) might give you some good ideas in weirdest and most unexpected moments. Tho you probably cannot kick in and start working on it - the habit you want to change, it's good to write down the ideas.

On 09/07/2017 at 4:59 PM, LAURENT* said:

I've increase my discipline to diet exercise and sleep consistently but that was training to not do something.

That's a start.

Training myself to actively do stuff has been much harder.

Because it is! 

On 09/07/2017 at 4:59 PM, LAURENT* said:

What are your techniques for sitting down and really getting to work without a distractions?

You already have some kind of habit - which you're looking to change - and that's difficult because your brain is already wired in one way. Changing diet/exercise/sleep habit is a good start but it's only a start - since those are most primitive human actions/habits - thus most easy to alter.

For this specific situation, I would suggest meditation, 5 to 10 minutes, prior and after to your selected period for the work. First, disable all notifications and distractions you might possibly have and can spare to silence (wi-fi off, no mail popups, etc). Second, sit, lay, walk, stand, whatever, and just breathe and focus on breathing - set a timer to, at first 5, then after a couple of times, for 10 minutes - time you would focus and think only about your breathing - disbarring every other thought. Afterwards, kick off the work. The intro and outro meditation sessions would be like an entry/exit guidance to the brain to/from some different state. Do this in a consistent time of a day and benefits can only go up.

The goal here is to focus your attention and to train it. The 30-60 min distraction free work-session won't help you if you have the monkey mind. You, also, should align your time to your tasks, instead of tasks to your time available (do 1 task for 40 minutes - instead of 1.3 tasks for a 60-minute session).

I think that "what is pushing you away from what you are doing?" is more fitting. 

There're .·. 3 .·. things that will get you back to work. It's really easy and it's 100% effective. 

1) Get in a difficult situation .·.
2) Get away from social networks, media, and such .·.
3) Get surrounded with mind-liked people that is doing and talking what you talk and do .·.

The fourth one... becoming something like an eunuch which I don't recommend at all. 

I try and set a specific time to do work. That way, I can plan in front of it to make sure I don't get distracted when that time comes.