How do hackers here concentrate?
i am trying to get a startup going and finding it hard to keep my attention focused on it.. I am very passionate about my startup but still always come up with an idea for simple small application that could potentially make money.. but again its a distraction. Any tips?
13 comments
What, specifically, are you trying to do for this startup? What tasks, specifically, are you failing to do for this startup?
Many people I know who have vague dreams of eventually opening a business -- and I count myself as of four years ago -- have no actual plan as to what they are doing, what the next step is, etc etc. It is very easy to fail at ill-defined goals: If I write "Improve my software somehow" in my to-do list for this weekend I'm quite likely to find everything else expand to fill all available time, if I write "Implement the achievement system and deploy it live" I have a clear goal and success/failure conditions which I can use to evaluate progress. (That was my task last Sunday and the Sunday before last, too, but I know exactly why it isn't done yet rather than just being surprised that it hasn't magicked itself up.)
After you get in the habit of making clear goals, I suggest making smaller goals with shorter steps. Long-term planning for me is a bunch of short-term plans strung together, and items on the list typically take a few hours or a day of work for me and then a week of calendar time. Even I can sustain concentration for a few hours at a time. Then I deploy it live, start working on the next goal, and check back in a week when the notebook tells me to. (This is perhaps a little peculiar to the rhythms of my business: I only routinely get uninterrupted time on the weekends, and one adaptation I've made to that constraint is that I A/B test extensively, so during the work-week my site just passively collects stats for analysis the following weekend.)
Many people I know who have vague dreams of eventually opening a business -- and I count myself as of four years ago -- have no actual plan as to what they are doing, what the next step is, etc etc. It is very easy to fail at ill-defined goals: If I write "Improve my software somehow" in my to-do list for this weekend I'm quite likely to find everything else expand to fill all available time, if I write "Implement the achievement system and deploy it live" I have a clear goal and success/failure conditions which I can use to evaluate progress. (That was my task last Sunday and the Sunday before last, too, but I know exactly why it isn't done yet rather than just being surprised that it hasn't magicked itself up.)
After you get in the habit of making clear goals, I suggest making smaller goals with shorter steps. Long-term planning for me is a bunch of short-term plans strung together, and items on the list typically take a few hours or a day of work for me and then a week of calendar time. Even I can sustain concentration for a few hours at a time. Then I deploy it live, start working on the next goal, and check back in a week when the notebook tells me to. (This is perhaps a little peculiar to the rhythms of my business: I only routinely get uninterrupted time on the weekends, and one adaptation I've made to that constraint is that I A/B test extensively, so during the work-week my site just passively collects stats for analysis the following weekend.)
The people who could answer your question are, sadly, not on HN, but off concentrating on their work.
I use the age-old (well, relatively so :)) equation of headphones and electronic music. It gets you into that coding trance that is so helpful for actually sitting down and getting work done: just put on fast-paced electronica/trance, open up TextMate/emacs/etc, and allow your focus to zero in on exactly the problem you need to address at that moment.
I second that, albeit I use my studio monitors instead of ear buds as I live by myself. I listen to http://mugasha.com - a startup focusing on bringing EDM music sets online in an easy to listen way - instead of 2 hour sets, they are broken up by listing.
disclosure: one of their founders is an online friend and will be my hotel roommate at SXSW later this week
disclosure: one of their founders is an online friend and will be my hotel roommate at SXSW later this week
1) provigil or ritalin
2) write out five things you will do tomorrow before you go to bed, then don't do anything until those five things have been checked off
2) write out five things you will do tomorrow before you go to bed, then don't do anything until those five things have been checked off
1 is a delicious option, yet what has happened to the human race that we must rely on this stuff to get things done?
I think the best way to stay focused on a project is by finding other friends that you can trust to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes you might get stuck working on something because you hit a roadblock and because you are so close to the project it is hard to move forward. If you have someone there to bounce ideas off of they might be able to help you by providing suggestions to your problems. If you are always moving forward on one project you will be able to keep focused on it and not get distracted...
Via coffee. Scratch that; via well-planned caffeine consumption: http://arvindn.livejournal.com/57651.html
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What works for me is green tea like 3 cups but I guess it's the same active ingredient as coffee. For creativity, it does boost me in that department(research caffeine and creativity).
What also works is chamomile tea, relaxes the mind.
What also works is chamomile tea, relaxes the mind.
Practical: Have an idea text file and make a one or two line entry. Then forget about it and go back to work. When you finish the project go back and read the file but not before.
try to look objectively over your past, have you given up on projects that in hindsight could have done well?. If you have a habit of giving up when the hard part arrives, then your past 'failures' should give you motivation to work through the hard parts. If you dont have that habit, then I would pay attention to the idea that you night not be as passionate about the idea as you think you are.
Bug/issue trackers, release dates, due dates. having someone else bothering you if stuff doesn't get done. partner, manager, etc