https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alfq8RG80Ns
by Jeaye

“I, like many of you, am a perfectionist. I love understanding a problem and its constraints and designing a perfect system for it. In fact, I love this process the most and not so such the actual shipping.”


“every project … I ever started
every book … I ever started
every class … I ever started”

the secret sauce is momentum
  … to build momentum
  … to maintain momentum

how? 5 points

#1 stay focused

no side projects!
  if you chase that new project energy (greenfield project → no maintenace burden/legacy), it creates rewrites in your main project
  why? because coming back means you have legacy there without momentum (→ takes a lot of energy)
    NOTE rewrites are not bad (let's you build good taste by trying out different ones), but momentum is key

#2 community

build your community for your FOSS project
but it's hard! why?
  superficial reason: you just need to find people with the same vision
  deep reason: you need to accept that you are not able to do it all yourself (loss of control, just code review, you need to maintain code in the future, lots of communication)
reading code is not fun (for Jeaye)
  why? code is just a small subset of the overall plan. Overall plan would give you momentum. code requires you to project which is mental burden.
  “turning an plan into code is a lossy encoding”
utilities?
  use tickets as design docs! when code is supplied, you are not surprised → less mental burden
    → make contributing easy
    → nudge towards learning, how to develop a solution, and its PRs
    how are artists perceived? historically, they worked in workshops and there was one master guiding apprentices → communal work

#3 prioritize

is just work on the most important task
what does it mean?
  → "important" is aligned with your goal
  → first understand your goal!
for the most part, we are afraid of working on the most important stuff
  … because we are building up dreams around it
    … we don't want to crush our dreams. we don't want to fail our dreams.
break your big tasks into smaller ones
small tasks are easier to finish
finish your small tasks!

#4 dream carefully

dreaming should set direction
dreaming creates a dopamine hit
  → you can live in a dream
  → dreams can be satiating
dreams can detach from reality (if you dream too long or if you have multiple - necessarily incompatible - dreams)
dreams can make reality disappointing
dreams can be perfect. dreams can be ideal. reality is not.
  connect dreams with reality!
create a vision, but stay grounded!


#5 take easy days

enthusiasm is a depletable resource
  → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlV8R6k8XvY
there are tasks which earn enthusiasm
there are tasks which burn enthusiasm
take a fun task (Jeaye: every Friday)
do some cleanup
  we have technical debt
  cleanup can be cathartic