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Have you ever thought about creating some piece of software but then you "design" it and "code" it in your mind and then think, "eh, why even put fingers to keyboard?"
It's an odd thing, kind of a Programmer's Block.
I think of the brain as the First Tool of Code Creation and if I can get it to work properly then I can do a lot.
I try to keep things simple:
1. decide what I want
2. make a plan
3. take action
4. adjust where necessary.
Sometimes you need some different ways to think about why your brain is trying to stop you. I stumbled upon this book
(BrainBlocks: Overcoming the hidden barries of success -amazon[^] ) recently and it has given me some new angles on why I get stuck. I like it because it breaks different blocks down into specific challenges and how to overcome them:
1. self-doubt
2. procrastination
3. impatience
4. multitasking
5. rigidity*
6. perfectionism
7. negativity
*Edit: had 8 blocks listed because I had typed rigidity block twice. There are only 7 blocks described.
Have any of you read the book? Do you find you are blocked at times when you go to create a large overwhelming project? Just curious.
Also, this is a great quote from the book:
Action is the essential ingredient to success.
The book is focused on getting you to move, create, do it!!
modified 26-Oct-15 10:23am.
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newton.saber wrote: Have any of you read the book?
Haven't, and probably won't, or if I order a copy, probably won't finish it. I doubt it'll help me, I've got so much else to do already, I don't have the patience to read a whole book for a few gems of wisdom, besides, my concentration keeps getting interrupted by other tasks, and being 50+ years old, I'm not sure my thinking is flexible enough anymore. 
newton.saber wrote: Do you find you are blocked at times when you go to create a large overwhelming project?
All kidding aside, years ago I discovered the solution to feeling overwhelmed on large projects, and it's this recursive process:
- Break the project down into smaller, well defined pieces
- Is the smaller piece small enough? By "small enough", what I mean is, can I accomplish something meaningful in a very simple way? (Sort of the other side of the coin of the Insider News' post about writing stupid code.) If not, recurse, breaking the piece down even further.
Action is the essential ingredient to success.
Absolutely. By the way, the beauty that I find in my approach is that it typically spawns numerous cool (what I think is cool) pieces that I then pick from and write articles about!
One other thing that I do, and this is really to avoid an aspect of my personality--I can imagine the end result so well that I discovered, years ago, that just in the imagining of the end product, I'm deriving so much emotional gratification that I never actually start the project! Sounds crazy, right? So, the other "trick" that I do is to stop myself from investing emotionally in the imagination and instead focus on the doing. (I can just imagine, haha, the innuendo's that my comment will result in!)
Marc
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Marc,
Great nuggets of wisdom here.
I've found these to be the keys to getting going too.
Especially...
Marc Clifton wrote: Break the project down into smaller, well defined pieces
Also, you are so right about:
Marc Clifton wrote: I find in my approach is that it typically spawns numerous cool (what I think is cool) pieces that I then pick from and write articles about!
And this does seem to be a key to the issue with being done before even beginnning...
Marc Clifton wrote: imagining of the end product, I'm deriving so much emotional gratification that I never actually start the project!
Great stuff, thanks.
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Hi Marc,
This:
Marc Clifton wrote: I'm deriving so much emotional gratification that I never actually start the project! Sounds crazy, right? So, the other "trick" that I do is to stop myself from investing emotionally in the imagination and instead focus on the doing.
This has been my second biggest stopper in my life, ever since I was a kid. I feel like not only getting the satisfaction from my imaginary success, but also consuming all my energy that drives me towards that achievement. And I still dont have a solution for it, except "be aware, stop thinking/dreaming, find something else to focus".
Do you have any tips on how to "stop investing emotionally in the imagination and focus on doing"? I would love to hear!
Kerem
"The primary trait of a good programmer is laziness. Nobody works harder to do nothing than a good programmer." - MehGerbil
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It's fascinating that something I thought was my own crazy mind turns out to be a lot more common that I thought!
And no, other than, as you said, stop thinking/dreaming and start doing, I haven't come up with anything better, it's more the skill of catching myself in the act, as it were. Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" provided some good insights in how to do that.
kerem ispirli wrote: This has been my second biggest stopper in my life
Dare I ask what is the first?
Marc
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Quote: I can imagine the end result so well that I discovered, years ago, that just in the imagining of the end product, I'm deriving so much emotional gratification that I never actually start the project!
You are probably a mathematician: 
An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying for the night in a hotel. A small fire breaks out in each room.
The physicist awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on the back of the hotel's wine list does some quick calculations. Grabbing the fire extinguisher, he puts out the fire with one, short, well placed burst, and then crawls back into bed and goes back to sleep.
The engineer awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on the back of the hotel's room service list (pizza menu) does some quick calculations. Grabbing the fire extinguisher (and adding a factor of safety of 5), he puts out the fire by hosing down the entire room several times over, and then crawls into his soggy bed and goes back to sleep.
The mathematician awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on a blackboard installed in the room, does some quick calculations. Jubliant, he exclaims "A solution exists!", and crawls into his dry bed and goes back to sleep.
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Thanks for an interesting post. I looked at the list, though, and you've got rigidity listed twice... what's the correct list?
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Oops, sorry about that.
There are actually only 7 blocks listed in the book -- instead of 8.
I edited the original post and removed the duplicate.
Thanks for spotting that.
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Trick yourself into the state of mind you had at the beginning - review motivation for original project....
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At one point in my career, fear of doing the wrong thing and desire to do the right/elegant thing (perfectionism) tended to either stop me in my tracks or make me take far too long.
Then a very wise person told me, "if something is worth doing, it's even worth doing poorly."
I haven't suffered from brain block in a very long time because of that.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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Great story of how overcoming that block has made you more successful.
Thanks for sharing.
I've found that I often get stuck when I think about what I don't know too much.
For example, yesterday I was thinking about trying to figure out how to do a particular piece of functionality related to authentication on an Android Project I'm working on.
I thought about how difficult it might be more than I thought about the solution.
Then I started trying to implement a solution, just as a prototype, and the "movement" made me discover the real solution.
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There is something to be said for adopting the (reported) attitude of native Americans going into battle,
"Today is a good day to die!".
A related more contemporary sentiment is, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
I have confidence that if I just start, it will all work out. There is no shame in honest failure. There is always progress because at least we've discovered what doesn't work.
...and if one gets fired after an honest effort fails to produce the objective, that is likely a blessing in disguise.
All mental tricks of the trade methinks. 
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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MikeTheFid wrote: "Today is a good day to die!".
I thought the Klingon's originated that expression!
Marc
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Absolutely. Baseball : You miss every ball you don't swing at.
I honestly coached a kid (12 yrs old) who would step to the plate and would not swing.
No amount of cajoling could get him to just move the bat.
The paradox? He thought he would someday hit one.
Ain't a gonnna happen.
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As a software engineer/programmer/designer in a large company working on large projects, I found that sometime I just had to do a project that could be finished to renew my focus on the larger job.
Dan
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Very true. The old Nike adage: Just do it!
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I have a problem opposite what others seem to have. Every time I've finished accomplishing what my employers have been told was impossible for less than a million bucks (for far less,) I've been let go. Do that a few times, and you get to the point that you're not motivated to even trust an employer.
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Charles Programmer wrote: Do that a few times, and you get to the point that you're not motivated to even trust an employer.
Right.
I've worked those kinds of places also. I'm sorry you've gone through that. It's quite terrible.
Anyways, I'm not thinking about creativity and employment as being together at all.
At work, someone smarter than me always has the answers so I need do very little thinking at all.
"But we could..."
"Uh...no...We're going to..."
"But, if we..."
"Well, no. And you're beginning to make the meeting go long."
I'll just shuffle back to my cubicle.  There's coffee there.
I'm kidding mostly.
Creativity is for the good stuff. The stuff where I'm making the decisions.
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One gets to the point where the actual implementation becomes more of a chore (that one would like to delegate) than the “high” one gets from simply coming up with a feasible solution (in one’s mind) to a particular problem.
It may take years for a project to be “ready” before it feels “right”.
I have a project like that. I first toyed with it in Paradox back in the 90’s. Now with .NET, C#, Web Services, 3rd party libraries, cross-platform IDEs, etc.; the project is back in active development (with enthusiasm).
See if you can find more tools to help you along. Modify them for your own (fair) use. Often that generates interesting and revealing side projects.
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: See if you can find more tools to help you along
Those are great ways of thinking to launch other products.
I always think like a user to generate ideas.
I start thinking, "I wish I had a..." Then I force myself to make it, even if it is impossible.
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Hi,
Time for a winge, I spent last night in casualty of my Hospital as some **** zapped my right eye with a laser pointer. The worst part was I was in a local park walking with my Dad who is not in the best of shape. The zap caused a black hole in my vision, which over time turned brown and has cleared now (the eye is still sore!  ). I feel I should report it to the plod if they had zapped my Dad (who has eye problems) it could have caused real damage! problem is I don't know the names of the chavvy little ****s and can' supply a description.
Also what is the name of Talk Talks parent company? Have the evil hackers got to them?
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Little sods.
If you can't tell Plod who it was (or even a vague description) then unless the park has good CCTV it's a waste of your time.
TalkTalk is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Satan Holdings plc.
And it looks like TalkTalk did have reasonable security after all:
We know it’s been a worrying and frustrating time since Wednesday’s cyber attack on our website. We’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of what happened as soon as possible and to keep you updated. Our investigations are currently showing the following:
• The number of customers affected and the amount of data potentially stolen is smaller than originally thought. Our website was attacked, but our core systems weren’t and remain secure.
• On its own, none of the data that may have been accessed could be used to leave you financially worse off.
• We don’t store unencrypted credit or debit card data on our site, so any card details which may have been accessed have the 6 middle digits blanked out. For example, it would appear as 012345XXXXXX6789. This means it can’t be used for financial transactions.
• No My Account passwords have been accessed.
• No banking details were taken that you won’t already be sharing with people when you write a cheque or give to someone so they can pay money into your account.
We will continue investigating and promise to keep you updated as we know more. In the meantime, we strongly encourage that you:
• Sign up to your free credit reporting service using this code: [REDACTED]. We have partnered with Noddle, one of the leading credit reference agencies, to offer 12 months of credit monitoring alerts for all customers. You can find out more at [REDACTED].
• Stay vigilant - TalkTalk will NEVER call customers and ask you to provide personal details or passwords. Please take all steps to check the true identity of any organisation that calls requesting personal information. If you have any doubts, please call us on [REDACTED] or [REDACTED].
From the latest email they sent me.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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TalkTalk is the parent company!
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