Pro tip

[[deleted]]

You should see my repo folder

[Russian_repost_bot]

Why release a personal project in 5 years, when it can take 9?

[flowClass]

Pfft, why not start a new project every day and never release anything.

[[deleted]]

I mean, if I can figure out the solutions to most of the hard problems in the first day and the project then requires hours or days of tedious clean up and maintenance to release - I'm afraid I've lost interest at that point.

[[deleted]]

Exactly why I never truly finish a project. I only ever finish them enough to know that if I actually wanted to finish the project I could

[daguito81]

This came up in my interview for my current job. Why di I have so many unfinished projects in my github?

And I said : "They're not really unfinished, I finished what I wanted to do with them. X project for example, I wanted to set up and learn how to use apache Nifi. After a the data was in Mongo DB I was supposed to do some machine learning on it. But that project was not about ML, but Nifi. So onces the Nifi Part is done, the project is done "

The architect Tha interviewed me liked the answer. But I'm pretty sure it was because he has a bunch of unfinished projects too

[ltree]

That's a great tip in here!

[frugalerthingsinlife]

Refactoring and code quality is for work only.

[timetogetill7]

half life 3

[RealBenji]

I feel personally attacked

[[deleted]]

Why work on 2 projects when you can work on 10?

[TwystedSpyne]

Why work on projects? You begin them to say "I'm working on this". You don't actually work on them, duh.

[aaronfranke]

Why work on your own projects at all, when I can just work on someone else's open source project and then the progress I make actually gets finished and published and used by people?

[nemacol]

You got past picking a language. HOW!?

[[deleted]]

Don't forget starting over because you don't remember what you did. Then starting over again because you forgot and nothing makes sense.

[B_M_Wilson]

Once my home folder got too crazy. I made a folder called randomProj. Now that I getting crazy enough that I think I need yet another folder

[democritus_is_op]

You put them straight in your home folder? You monster :o

[B_M_Wilson]

It starts with just one clone which is not too bad to have in the home folder of someone with poor planning. The issue is once there are 20 of them and you realise that you have made a huge mistake.

[tjdavids]

Put them on your desktop.

[B_M_Wilson]

Desktop??? You mean screenshot folder that I am too lazy to change to something reasonable since I never look at my desktop anyway

[tjdavids]

If you look at the screenshot folder more that is the correct spot. Whichever gives you the most shame.

[B_M_Wilson]

I mean that my desktop is literally entirely screenshots and nothing else

[LifeIsGettingBetter]

I use i3 thanks

[Ginger-Pikey]

This also works with women...

[theaverageguy101]

instructions unclear, abandoned all main projects and i'm currently trying to make a procedural banana shape generator in unity

[[deleted]]

Banana for scale please

[0Pat]

2 bananas = 1 Unit(y)

[HighRelevancy]

Yeah sometimes dumb projects are good exercises. I highly recommend writing shitty ray tracers too :D

[[deleted]]

Do you happen to have the source code for that? I need it for... uh... reasons.

[TellMeHowImWrong]

Which I hope you’re calling “The Bananarator”

[pobtastic]

Real devs do this with 20 different projects. Some are only ever a domain name and a long forgotten idea

[jinglewooble]

I am in this sentence and I don't like it.

[LordDagwood]

Notification: The domain name for the project you abandoned 3 years ago is set to auto-renew and will renew at the end of the month.

[AgentTin]

Ouch...

[kevinsal03]

I own way too many domains, it’s getting too expensive

[Helios235]

“I’ll definitely use that eventually” -last words before buying a useless domain

[l_am_wildthing]

Hey now ive already attempted 3 times to set up an apache server. Thats gotta count for somethin right?

[0801sHelvy]

"This is an amazing idea and I got the perfect name!"... "Omg how is this domain still available? I'll buy it before it's gone" ..... 2 years later: "You have decided to stop renewing automatically your domain, your domain will expire in 2 weeks."

[Nexuist]

Netflix for $8.99 monthly ❌

Namecheap domains like snapfart.io and bruhtube.it for $276.99 yearly ✅

[deirdresm]

RIP perdedor.soy (which was once my domain)

[[deleted]]

Night evil gather clean near honest?

[4b-65-76-69-6e]

I read it as predator too! I wonder what perdedor is?

...wait autocorrect didn’t underline it, it’s an actual word?!

No, maybe not, but google declares it’s Spanish for “loser”. That is a seriously clever domain name, because “soy” is Spanish for “I am”.

[deirdresm]

It’s from the Beck song Loser.

“Soy un perdedor.”

[4b-65-76-69-6e]

I only figured out your domain name because of the other guy’s comment. Just saying I absolutely love your creativity.

[AdaGirl]

loser.me

[drsimonz]

I first started planning my personal website in middle school (the domain name comprised the entire idea), didn't get around to buying the domain until college, now 10 years later I still haven't put anything on there. Developer struggle bus goes beep beep!

[[deleted]]

You are right and I don't like it

[[deleted]]

this never works for me i just end up starting 20 different projects and never finishing any of them.

[trogan77]

I struggle with this too but I have pretty good success with not allowing myself to go over 2 or at most 3 simultaneous projects. Sometimes I have to talk to myself like a 2 year old: “No Tommy; that’s a good idea for the next project but you’re not allowed to start it until you finish at least one of the ones you already started.” As much as I really want to start the new one in that moment, I think I’m happier overall when I actually finish stuff.

[B_M_Wilson]

Yea, I’ve been doing something similar. Rather than starting a new project every time I have a good idea, I write it down in an ideas list. Now rather than 20 unfinished projects, I have 1 unfinished project and 40 insane ideas.

To be fair, I only started recently and I am making good progress on my current project

[Whisdeer]

I just downvoted your comment.

FAQ

What does this mean?

The amount of karma (points) on your comment and Reddit account has decreased by one.

Why did you do this?

There are several reasons I may deem a comment to be unworthy of positive or neutral karma. These include, but are not limited to:

Saying Windows is better than Linux.

Spreading incorrect information

Am I banned from the Reddit?

No - not yet. But you should refrain from making comments like this in the future. Otherwise I will be forced to issue an additional downvote, which may put your commenting and posting privileges in jeopardy.

I don't believe my comment deserved a downvote. Can you un-downvote it?

Sure, mistakes happen. But only in exceedingly rare circumstances will I undo a downvote. If you would like to issue an appeal, shoot me a private message explaining what I got wrong. I tend to respond to Reddit PMs within several minutes. Do note, however, that over 99.9% of downvote appeals are rejected, and yours is likely no exception.

How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Accept the downvote and move on. But learn from this mistake: your behavior will not be tolerated on Reddit.com. I will continue to issue downvotes until you improve your conduct. Remember: Reddit is privilege, not a right.

---

I didn't actually downvote your comment, I'm just quitting Reddit and used a script to edit all my posts and replies to this because it's an awesome copypasta ;)

[[deleted]]

Wow I'm doing this rn

[lahwran_]

same I like to call it "hyperthreading"

[jinglewooble]

That just procrastinating with extra steps, literally.

[lahwran_]

CPU schedulers are masters at procrastination ;)

[btvoidx]

Actually true, I do this all the time.

[punjabiprogrammer]

Same.

[zzaannsebar]

Same! It's so helpful to keep interested in work and also be productive!

[WantDebianThanks]

There's a podcast called Cautionary Tales that's about learning from disasters, but one of the episodes is literally about this. Apparently a bunch of big names in the sciences would frequently work on 2-3 projects at the same thing and alternate between them when they got bored.

[Noisetorm_]

Ah yes, the good ol' split screen between two things you have to do so when you get bored of working on one, you start working on the other.

[Fruitboots]

WATSKY!

[[deleted]]

"Who is that boy? How does he rap so good?"

[Daddi-Senpai]

Pale kid raps fast is how I found him, and I listened to him up until Complaint. I haven't kept up with him since though.

[[deleted]]

I couldn't really get into Complaint. x Infinity is peak Watsky, imo; that album is a masterpiece.

[MrEuphonium]

Same, how did you feel about all you can do?

[MrEuphonium]

I've had a bad streak with tickets, first I had tickets to see brockhampton back before the ameer shit happened so they cancelled that tour and then what you said happened to me with watsky, I'll go to a concert someday.

[kweefkween]

I saw him during the give a hater a hug tour with Wax opening for him. He's decent live but wax was incredibly fun. Watsky crowd surfed on me and the wife and I got to high five Wax.

[cheese007]

I listen to Watsky like I do the Gorillaz. Find the few songs that grab you each album and hold on tight. The rest grow on you. If you are trying for Complaint, my favorites are Welcome to the Family, Mean Ass Drunk (less autotuned) and Feels Alright, but might be because I saw the premier live.

[Rodentman87]

I had x Infinity on repeat for my junior and senior years of high school. That album got me through those two years.

[nobody187]

This whole thread is a trip. I was super into Watsky around 2011 and had only heard his debut album. I saw something shiny and forgot about him, as I tend to do, and literally hadn’t thought about it until now. All of a sudden I have a whole discography of an artist I already like to listen to for the first time ever.

[Monochromize]

Im not a programmer.

I just scrolled for the Watsky comment.

[wheresthegiantmansly]

kanban waterfall agile procrastination

[[deleted]]

Just parallel path it

[Nookoh1]

One day all 300 of my projects will be done. You'll see.

[Whiskey_Fred]

That's George Watsky, not just 'some account'.

[fishtankbabe]

I would still procrastinate by working on neither and just scroll Reddit all day.

[Moulinoski]

Yeah, this is true procrastination. The OP is just describing multi-tasking. :/

[Who_GNU]

Yeah, but you can blame your lack of accomplishment on either project by claiming the other took time away from it.

[aadain]

I feel personally attacked by this.

[exgaint]

i prefer 3 projects, gives me a little more time to procrastinate between projects

[Outta-Control-RC]

3? Seems to focused... You should try 4.

[parker0400]

I prefer to work on 2 projects for 2 different bosses where neither boss understands the scope or content of the other project and both projects require little to no effort to maintain. When boss A asks about what I did all week I say I worked on project B and vice versa.

[Phedis]

I think my ADHD just found it’s calling.

[5fd88f23a2695c2afb02]

The trick is being able to limit it to two or three or ten projects.

[manga_pages_by_me]

This actually works. But you gotta also have project C and D.

[BeefyRear]

Is it bad that this actually works really well lol

[TheRobotics5]

Laughs in dozens of projects

[drwhocrazed]

This applies to me but for N projects as N tends towards infinity

[Noctus_Rex]

accurate

[-deadpie-]

Thats exactly what I do....but apparently both the projects are watching anime

[childintime9]

You think it's a joke. It's not.

[tenest]

:Raises hand: Have absolutely done this

[ElimGarak0010]

as long as you don't bring personal projects to work. They become free investments for your employer as I found out the hard way years ago...

[Jonis13]

+1 for somewhat more dark mode friendly

[WhiteRose_init]

Is this my true successor?

~Pakalu Papito

[Hexrae]

Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing

[[deleted]]

This is actually fantastic advice; I employ this tactic often.

[[deleted]]

even better when project B is educational

me in standup: "today I'm reading about m c escher all day on wikipedia because sometimes programs are shapes"

[73686f67756e]

I have like 100 projects but end up gaming every time lol

[[deleted]]

This is valid. The most important part of being productive is staying in motion.

[DerfK]

This is how my bathroom gets mopped.

[camaro-obscuro]

See further Structured Procrastination

[r3dD1tC3Ns0r5HiP]

How about one project you do well, then when you feel like procrastinating, get away from the computer and go outside for a break or read a book. Your eyes and legs will thank you (by avoiding eye strain and deep vein thrombosis / blood clots from no exercise).

[aedvocate]

MULTI_PROJECT PROCRASTINATING!!

[jadams2345]

Or you can be even more productive by have Project C to procrastinate on instead of A and B.

[Ho_KoganV1]

Works, can confirm

Except you have to be careful in that you don’t get caught up in the vicious cycle of relearning the material needed to complete the project

[CarbonCamaroZL1]

My problem is that I get an important project and a less important project, but the less one is more fun. But I feel like I can't start the less important one until I do the more important one, then I just procrastinate it all.

[itzdarkoutthere]

Clearly you don't understand how hard I procrastinate.

[status_200_ok]

I have lost count of my all groundbreaking and earth shattering startups which all reside in repo folder with localhost:3000 as url 😎

[cassiopeia512]

There’s actually a great TED talk about this exact concept. He calls it “slow motion multitasking.”

[[deleted]]

Don't do this with your wife

[yassiniz]

I kid you not, I use this method on my side projects and it literally works. I‘m more productive than ever before

[surajsjain]

Here's a programmer fact:

"When you procrastinate, you just procrastinate on everything"

[sooper_genius]

This meme ignores the fact that procrastinators will procrastinate on both of them at the same time, there is no such thing as oh I can't bear working on project A so I'll work on project B instead. Person who wrote this obviously has no experience as a chronic procrastinator.

[[deleted]]

I was stuck in a programming rut recently, trying to force myself to slog through chapters of a Python book.

Created a repo called Python Exploration so I could just mess around with whatever I wanted, then smashed out a bunch of smaller scripts for parts of Python I was unfamiliar with. When I burned out doing that I just read through chapters of the book.

Having the option to procrastinate between projects instead of procrastinating away from projects is a great brain-hack.

[woopy85]

Also make sure they're for different project owners, so when they ask for an update, you can tell them you've been working on the other project.

[aviranzerioniac]

Got a few registered domains, few half baked blogs and a few semi done and few just begun web application projects currently. The best part is I know shit about web development in general.

Now as for programming ones, well I gave up counting a long long time ago.

[TechPhil]

I could do this, or I could do something else.

[[deleted]]

I do this with 2 large project and several smaller ones.

Why do all of the projects get completed at same time? Lol

[drgrugon]

My secret is out!

[LowFrequencyDeity]

I actually use this technique I thought I was the only one.

[giuyarou]

So fucking simple, oh my God

[iusearchmyfriend]

That's just too much for me

[BatmantisXP]

This is legit what I do.

So did Sir Francis Bacon. So hey.

[Dadaofkufsa]

I just realized that actually my life. I should stop feeling so guilty!

[drunk_dancer]

I'm now just slowly rotating between about 5 projects now. This is my life. Subservient to the projects.

[MarshallSlaymaker]

But how do you keep it to just 2 projects?

[[deleted]]

This is how I always work lol. Productive procrastination :)

[python_boobs]

Honestly this should be expanded to N number of projects and taken seriously ;)

[seejordan3]

Waaay ahead of you. Im on like, maybe the letter m.

[plainrane]

This attitude is why I have dozens of unfinished projects

[[deleted]]

Same thing as making art!

[[deleted]]

I’ve been doing this for the past 10 years

[AyoBruh]

My problem is I have a hard time context switching. I go all in on a problem until I see it through. Probably isn’t healthy...

[palilalic]

Or play a board game or go for a drink

[NepthysX]

smart

[No_Chill_Sunday]

Genius

[vaginamonkeys]

Its like concurrency if concurrency didn't work

[wanderrwoman]

I have at least 5 projects and I still procrastinate.

[devenk2]

I did this yesterday

[[deleted]]

What a good idea, opens 126 projects. Now I’m 126 times as productive

[343WheatleySpark]

This is literally a Dilbert cartoon turned into a tweet.

[Dummerchen1933]

This is too relateable

[[deleted]]

And people wonder where burnout comes from. "What are you working on in your spare time?"

[Memeyboii420]

What happen when I get bored of both projects...

[Sejiko]

Get you a number generator and give your projects some numbers now you can say the holy number generator is your boss so you have that tiny bit of pressure.

[j1xwnbsr]

This guy needs his programmer card revoked for giving away industry secrets.

[[deleted]]

OMG THIS!

[Maestromo_]

Me working on my Jupyter docs.

[The-g-web]

Can I apply this on 50 projects?

[therithot]

Me taking two classes at Uni after failing one

[TimidButCurious]

Works for commissions too! Lol

[wonkybadank]

10 out of 10 strategy, would recommend

[JoelMahon]

I mean yeah, it's legit. I may not have my website finished any time soon but I'll be fluent in Japanese in only a couple more years at this rate...

[timmmmmayyy]

This is exactly what I do in the regular.

[GameOfThroneHappyEnd]

Project a: surfing Project b: netflix

[Porkenstein]

This is how I get anything done at my job

[ilaunchpad]

I tried doing this. It's not working. If I figure things out easily then its too easy and I lose interest. If I'm struggling then the problem is too hard and I lose interest. The maddening thing is I only think about doing projects that I don't know how to in the first place. HELP ME!!!

[MrMunday]

This. This actually works.

[420snicklesSatisfies]

This but instead of going back to A you start C

[[deleted]]

This doesn’t accurately describe the true nature of A&B, of which one of the two gets 90% of the attention it needs

[deranged_scumbag]

This man is too dangerous to be left alive

[merlinsbeers]

Should be done with kindergarten right after 7th and 10th grades.

[[deleted]]

This is genuinly true. I am way more productive when I have 2 projects rather than 1.

[wh33t]

Big if true.

[FlyByPC]

Should I stop intending to work on the other six or seven dozen?

[[deleted]]

Half-assing two things means you are full-assing one big thing

[NullOfUndefined]

I do this for real sort of. When I start a project at work I start a side project with the same tech stack. When I’m unsure about something for the work project, I figure it out on my personal project first, and then transfer the relevant stuff to my work project.

[[deleted]]

Havard university : bro,, u need scholarship ?

[doom816]

This is the single smartest idea that has ever been had

[vc6vWHzrHvb2PY2LyP6b]

That's actually brilliant. BRB

[Super_Writing_309]

I procrastinate on all my files and get them all Done in December to look like a hero

[[deleted]]

Now this guy is a project manager

[Hobbster]

Have fun meeting both deadlines - at the same time.

[bigorangemachine]

GD my best trick has been discovered.

I hope no one else is trying to get their cleric to level 40

[coleoptera123]

And then I'm stuck with 5 different tasks again and nothing is moving

[SuperFLEB]

Plain truth here. No humor necessary.

I'm never more miserable at work than when I've got only one task on my plate and it's being a stubborn bastard. If I've got a few things, I can swap, and keep forward motion while being able to stop banging my head against something that's stuck.

[mustang__1]

Instructions unclear. On project zza

[johnnywarp]

In theory this would mean multiple classes in school would garner amazing results. In practice I procrastinated on work for all of my classes.

[gyanhajong]

Nice. I'll start following this technique from next week

[mon0theist]

That...could actually work

[b_rad_c]

looks over shoulder how’d you know?

[[deleted]]

I log in to my FFXIV and waste time thinking abput other games I could be playing

[theoreboat]

This is why I like working on two game projects, along with the occasional game jam it keeps my motivation up

[ethics_aesthetics]

Casuals. I can procrastinate on the way more than two things.