Why Your Tech Backlog Keeps Growing—and How to Finally Finish It
You have how many repositories sitting, with a few git commits on github. I can definitely see more than 3 there where you wanted to start something tried and then jumped ship doing something else or started something else
No judgment, i am the same, i have similar backlogs. But I have learnt a lot of different things to understand why we do this and how we can solve it, because once you actually understand why this happens and what you need to do, you will stop this OVERWHELMING feeling.
Why this happens?
Because its so easy to start something, finishing is harder. And with coding, its so easy now, we have AI, we can just start so quickly, but just because AI can help code, doing everything is not that simple. So we then start doing something else and it becomes super hard to start back up again
And this isn't just related to coding or programming, gaming backlog or if you are doing like a woodworking project, all these things have this same issue where people there also have this issue about completing because its super hard and its always feeling like you just don't have time to complete everything
We need to learn that this feeling is completely fine, everyone has it, thats the point, you need to learn and understand that you can't do all this, its super hard to complete everything that you have a backlog of, we will never be able to complete everything.
Pick and choose what is important
If we can't finish everything then what? Do we just scrap everything?
NO
You need to learn to prioritise what actually is something you want to work on. And also realise, you have 0 reason to do any of this, its not really going to make you money, this is a hobby that you like, so why stress yourself so much, no one will come after you if you don't do this. If this is a project to contribute as a FOSS or something that could make your life easier, you would still need a form of motivation to complete it
You need to pick 1 thing first, 1 thing that you feel that you want to just prioritise over and you will just learn to focus on that so that you don't keep getting distracted. Now this is easier said that done, you could have just done this, or you could be wanting to but it still feels super hard
Start super small
This is my super power to getting things done, You have to understand that this is a marathon, you haven't started running and you are worried about finishing a 24km run. You need to make 1 goal. This one goal can be the smallest thing, You are making a website, your goal is to start the template, thats it. Its so small, so easy to do. You can just get started, you need to be proud you did that. Yes its small but its something
Making yourself feel bad about not doing a lot is completely shit, because you just will not feel that you are doing anything, when you are.
Imagine this, you did 1% of work. In a hundred days you have done 100%. Thats 3 months only. Before that you had 0, nothing done.
Obviously this is hyperbole but its just a mindset because learning to start is harder than continuing when you already have the momentum to keep going because you need to build this habit that will allow you to just do things, doing this helps you work on any project, even outside of just coding.
Log what you do
Keep track of what you did and why you did it
This is the final step and also as important as doing small things. If you can't figure out what you did, or remember, and you can't show yourself that you have progress. Then this is the same point back to square one
You need a way to show, at least you are thinking, or you are making your way to work towards the goal you have set. This is for yourself, a way to keep your mind knowing, maybe you didn't code, maybe you didn't add a new feature or fixed a bag. But the issue is you did do stuff, you could have spent like 1h looking to fix a bug and you learnt something new, you could have watched a video that helped in some way.
Just because your progress wasn't visible doesn't mean it didn't exist. This is what i do. I just have an Obsidian where i have a daily note, and i just write what and why. I keep my thinking so when i need to have a look I can see where I went wrong and I understood what I did that I can keep going or change depending on what I need.
Start today, start now, go!
Thats it, just go now, start, there is no need to keep planning, stop thinking so much, find what you want to do, just start a bit, then continue when you feel like it, don't need to worry how much you do, just by continuing you are doing more than most people because they haven't even started
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