Motivation

Motivation is something that, for me at least, varies a lot. Some days, I’ll be really excited to work on a project, and on other days just the thought of working on it makes me exhausted.

When I was trying to figure out why I was demotivated at times and excited at others, I came up with a few factors to my level of motivation for any project:¹

The type of project

Sometimes, the thing that I’m working on is inherently interesting to me, usually when I’m implementing an idea I think is cool. There’s also the opposite case, where I will dread working on the project, which is usually some tedious homework assignment or something difficult.

I’ve also found that the scale of the project doing is pretty important. Writing small scripts are exciting to me, because getting it to function fully is a matter of an hour or so at most, in which I’m completely focused on the project. Big projects can still provide this motivation, usually when trying to solve it’s smaller scale sub-problems, but instead of short and intense bursts it becomes a few hours of steady progress.

Finally, I’ve found that the difficulty of project matters. Too easy and it’ll become mindless or it’ll be over too quickly to need any motivation. Too difficult and I become frustrated but very motivated - I can’t solve the problem but I’ll waste a few hours trying. With the right amount of difficulty I can get the motivation of working on a hard problem while feeling like I’m making progress.

What part of it I’m working on

Different parts of each project can be different in how engaging they are. Writing tests and glue code is not very fun, but it still has to be done for the project to be finished, or to get to a more fun part of the project like implementing a new feature.

I also find that if I’m at a part of a project where I have to do something very substantial, even though I want to work on it when I’m away from my computer, when I open the project to do that I immediately lose the motivation I had. But by breaking that step up into smaller pieces, writing those down, and then focusing on one piece at a time helps me re-motivate me.

How long it has been since I’ve worked on it

The gap between working on a project has a pretty sizable impact on my motivation as well. A long break tends to mean I’ve forgotten what I was working on or how my project is laid out. It happens to pretty much everyone because taking a break requires you to lose your train of thought, and putting in the extra energy to re-understand the basics of your project can be tiring. But, just thinking about the project from time to time, and keeping a small list of what’s on your mind before taking a break can really ease the transition of getting back into a project.

How long I’ve worked on it in one sitting

Some projects also have an effect where working on it for longer makes me want to work on it more. I’ve found that this happens sometimes for long or tedious work like some homework, where it’s not very difficult but it still needs to be done. After I get over the initial hesitation of starting work on it, it becomes a lot easier to continue working, because I just want to get it out of the way.

It also happens with projects I do want to work on. Getting close to finally solving a problem or doing what I wanted to do that day can be very motivating, and very satisfying after I’m done.

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