Several weeks ago, I met a friend for lunch to discuss what we’ve each been working on. I was excited about my product and began relating to him how much progress I was making on the registration and authentication pieces, completing the accounts pages, and how I was turning my attention to defining “plans”.
Without missing a beat, Kenny just looked at me and asked very pointedly, “Why are you wasting time on registration, when you should be working on the product itself?”
That stung a lot, but he was right. I should have been focusing on the product itself, but there I was working on registration. At the time, I was convinced registration had to be in place before I could even start on the main application. Now I know I was just putting it off.
Unlike registration, the rest of the application is uncharted territory. I don’t know how things are done in the industry, what the workflows are like, or what the user experience should be. (I’m basically trying to duplicate a real world process on the computer without ever having actually seen the process being performed.) Not having a clear idea of what to do is highly demotivating. So, like most people, I gravitate toward activities I know until more is revealed about the problem at hand. In this case, however, no more information was forthcoming. I just needed to push through.
Getting that initial momentum is everything. Once that’s acquired, building upon it is easy. What seems to work well for me is staring blankly at the ceiling for a little while – but not too long – trying to figure out how things will work, and then drawing some basic wireframes on paper.
I don’t know if it’s the act of laying things out at that high of a level, of if drawing opens up some part of my brain which knows what needs to be done, but that’s the pattern which seems to have emerged. Think, draw, do.
Since that lunch with Kenny, I’ve completed the first of the three major components of the application, and have started working on the second. Procrastination’s still a problem – it always will be – but having friends to keep you on track can sometimes be all the momentum you need.