Losing Motivation during project

Question

I am a Computer Engineer and working at a Software House as Software Engineer for the last 2 years.

I usually observe things a lot and try to get an idea from everything to do something entrepreneurial.

I start the project on my own and implement the stuff. Now, here is the problem. when most of the difficult task is done i leave the project. I have done the same with 4 projects. Solving all the major problems and not completing it. I am very annoyed with it.

I personally believe that i lose motivation in the middle. How to handle this ?

Answer 1

It depends on what your actual goal is.

If the goal is to finish the project, build up emotions around that, instead of only solving the "exciting" and/or interesting parts. Be excited about more-complete functionality, not merely getting to the point where you "know it could be done".

If the goal is to solve interesting, exciting problems, you're already "done" once you've solved them.

Decide which is more important: completing one tiny little (if interesting) part, or actually finishing.

Answer 2

I personally believe that i lose motivation in the middle. How to handle this ?

find someone who will pick it up at that point and get project to conclusion

finding such a person is not easy, but (if I understand correctly) you do like difficult tasks - just consider this to be one the most difficult.

Answer 3

I think the best way to work is one that uses the agile methodology of points. You want every project to have high momentum. And you do that by mixing small 1 point tasks with medium 2-3 points tasks. And then when you're at your peak, you tackle the hardest tasks which are generally 4-5 points large.

If you keep mixing up your tasks and make it a game this way, you're no longer focusing on just how do I tackle what other's can't. But you're in the mindset that you just have to work on things till you get to a certain point level everyday.

I believe the reason we (I'm an EE) get bored and don't complete a project is that our focus is always on - what can make me stand out + what seems the most challenging. So it's not about completing a project - it's about how can we solve something that others can't or that I've done which gives me notoriety. And small tasks that everyone else can do, we don't end up doing. Because it doesn't serve us as an individual.

I think it's an ego thing we do because when someone tells us "hey you couldn't get that done?", we go on overdrive. So we're trained to tackle the hardest problems first always. I think that's where we all fail.

Answer 4

i assume that you are creating some sort of service for people to use and as you said you are a computer engineer so you might not be in designing or business stuff.

And you suddenly start worrying about how will i market it, where will i get the marketing budget, who will design the interface, will it handle 1 million users, does it have enough features. you mention entrepreneurial in your post so you are thinking about earning money. i think that in your case last thing which would be on your mind is the money. if it comes , good enough if not then i will put it on github or make it open source and move on my next project. In my opinion creating software is first all about fun first. who doesn't take it as fun shouldn't be in this.

secondly just concentrate on completing the stuff. for example if you working on .net, you have custom Microsoft design templates when you create the web application project in visual studio. do all your stuff on that . complete it then start worrying about the next stuff, maybe the designing phase.