Whether it's building a new project from scratch, implementing a big feature, or beginning a large refactor, it can be difficult to stay motivated and complete large technical projects. A method that works really well for me is to continuously see real results and to order my work based on that. We've all experienced that feeling of excitement starting a new project. The first few weeks you can't wait to get on the computer to work. Then slowly over time you get distracted or make up excuses and work on it less. If this is for real work, you forcibly slog your way to the finish line but every day is painful. If this is for fun, you look back years from now and remember what could've been. I've learned that when I break down my large tasks in chunks that result in seeing tangible forward progress, I tend to finish my work and retain my excitement throughout the project. People are all motivated and driven in different ways, so this may not work for you, but as a broad generalization I've not found an engineer who doesn't get excited by a good demo. And the goal is to always give yourself a good demo. I'm not claiming that anything I say in this post is novel. It definitely shares various aspects of well-known software engineering or management practices. I'm just sharing the way I approach the larger technical work that I do and why I do it this way. I'll use my terminal emulator project as an example throughout this post so that there is realistic, concrete experience I can share. There's plenty of other projects I could've used but I'll choose this one since it's not related to my professional work and it is recent enough to be fresh in my mind. I want to be crystal clear that I am not shaming anyone for not completing projects. As long as you're having fun and feel accomplished (or simply don't care), good for you and more power to you. This blog post is aimed at people who want to finish projects more or simply want to learn how I strive to finish projects more. ...
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Last seen: 2025-10-11 00:34