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I wish I had a good answer. After decades, it just comes and goes. If I get excited about the project I find myself motivated. But, if I get a hint of silliness, BS, etc. about the project, all that motivation goes out the window.
They say the only way to get over writers block is to just start writing. Even if it's crap because you don't feel like doing it. Just start doing it. Eventually you'll get back into it. Probably works the same with code.
But, all I know for me, is that with code... the industry is the same old thing. Nothing changes. So, bye bye novelty. Which is like the death of creativity.
Not sure if that was a useful reply or not...
Jeremy Falcon
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Stop thinking of it as a creative process. Much of the time, thank goodness, it's turning a series of logical process into usable code for a job/task/etc. It's that motivation to create the code not creativeness. The creativeness comes when it needs to come. It's not on a demand basis. Most times, necessity makes it needed, other times, efficiency and/or clarity makes it happen. Does this help? Been creating/writing/fixing code for almost 50 years.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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It's called burnout, and it's very damaging. The only remedy is to take some time off.
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Take lots of short breaks doing the exact opposite. Get outside, do something physical, etc. I work from home so this is easier. Stay away from the computer/phone on weekends and evenings. Also coding in a field that you are passionate about or working with people you care about is helpful. A body can only take so much sitting motionless and a brain can take only so much focus before they say, “no more”. You have to create the balance that prevents it.
Chris
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I generally go to the pub for a couple of pints. Lubricates the little grey cells, and often re-awakens the oomph needed for the project. A tough block may need an extra pint, but don't drive!
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My father used to say that lack of motivation means you don't have a big enough mortgage yet.
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I have this feeling with some regularity. In your case, I'd wonder what exactly you're working on or trying to.
I'm very familiar with the feeling of having bitten off more than I can chew, the dread of things getting gradually more complicated and fragile. Yes it is all a creative endeavor.
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Do anything but look at a monitor, maybe for a day, maybe for a week (and in that case take vacation in the Rockies). It usually means that either you've exhausted all feasible outcomes in your imagination or there are so many routes you can take that you need to mull over them away from the computer.
To me 90% of coding is actually on the whiteboard (the exception being looking through the 100+ functions and classes in an API)
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Retire. It's pretty great (except for the health care system in lolUSA#n).
Seriously, do more analysis on the lack of motivation. Is it really lack of motivation to code, or is it the particular project/environment?
In my example, I was at a place where they had these consultants who'd been around for years. Aggressively ignorant on doing things more right(ish)--hard coding magic values, the "new" stuff (MVC) was too hard and they didn't want to learn it, etc, etc, etc.
Couldn't get the boss to move on getting rid of these people, so I left. I can't coach people to be better who refuse to try to learn.
Fortunately for me, I had the resources to just retire, but short of that, I would've just found another place with more a competent staff. Wasn't demotivated to solve problems, just to be around solving them in a demonstrably terrible way.
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following is 90% rant
coding for a job, is a job
the do what you love, and you wont work a day, fallacy is that day to day work, does not cover the reason you might have first loved to program.
The "not for you", is either short term thinking.
35 and only in the last year diagnosed ADHD, learning and rethinking mind set around how I approached things, ie I am procrastinating vs PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) and yeah im mind wondering for hours on end, but once I finally kick into coding, the results are 2 or 3 steps iterated along, vs the times I have written first pass, then 3 hours of adjusting.
expand this out to days, weeks, months.
Is that healthy for all demands of work, no but also sometimes yes.
Depression and other mental exhasutions, hyper fixations, also do not help along with the creative load that coding requires.
Rubber duck debugging works for some. But explaing to a human, junior, kid, work collage how it works might be enough to get them fingers clicking.
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Talk to your boss and ask for a junior dev that you can mentor in this job. It will take longer but will provide you with some higher purpose as well as help you realize how much you've learned and have to offer.
If motivation comes from Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose (per Daniel Pink) then you appear to have the Autonomy but are lacking the Mastery (this is not a challenge for you), and Purpose (the goal doesn't resonate for you).
Given that you've posted here, you're not a reclusive troglodyte (not that there's anything wrong with that) and you might enjoy bringing someone up to speed on something they couldn't do on their own.
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I totally get you.
I started coding around 11 - I’m now well north of 50 and I’ve probably thought about coding almost everyday since. It’s obsessed me, it’s a beautiful activity that is also hard, frustrating but rewarding.
I’ve often blocked for different reasons:-
- the requirements were vague
- deep down I didn’t think the feature was valuable (to the user)
- I didn’t know where to start
- I was burnt out (often because of the above times 100)
Depending on above:-
- go and do something else (cycling, swimming, etc)
- go speak to the (REAL) end user. It will either give you purpose or prove its not valuable
- write a failing test for the new feature. Then make it pass!
- write a todo list for the feature. Here’s the thing, though, make the next action really, really small so you could just do it will zero effort. Then make the next task that small. Keep going (read “getting things done” for more on this)
This should get you going. But remember to look after your mental health x
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Good comment. I've been writing code since 1966 - I was actually the first person at The University of Kansas to major in Computer Science, though it had to be called B.A. in Math with Emphasis in Computer Science because it had not been officially recognized until the year after I graduated. However, in this long life of writing programs, I've hit this wall several times. I learned that it is temporary and whenever I was left feeling frustrated and empty, I just went for a walk, played my guitar for awhile, took a nap -- whatever it took to get past the roadblock. The reward for cracking a tough nut was making the computer perform some cool backflip, clever dance, or magic trick. Part of what I enjoyed being part of the first wave of independent developers was being ultimately responsible for a large, multi-function, monolithic, high-reliability application for a small target user-base. I'm "retired", but in this business, there's really no such thing. Enjoy life.
TwangGuru
www.twangguru.com
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The only time I code lately is when someone makes a request, and I always aim to please if reasonably possible. Other than that, they made me the manager and I can tell someone else to do it.
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- Sit at your gosh-darned desk and grind it out. You're a big boy. They don't pay you to play.
- Code something else. It's not like there is only one task ahead of you in a big project.
- Do some non-coding project task. It's not like a project is 100% coding.
- Read about coding, listen to videos about coding, anything that you can convince yourself will improve your usefulness.
- Get lunch, take a walk, but always set a time limit for your distraction.
- Rage-quit your software job, and open a gluten-free bakery.
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I take a break, or take on less demanding tasks. Or switch to something unrelated, but then again I have more tasks at my work, than just coding, so I have a lot of freedom of choice. But sometimes I just wait for my muse to come to me.
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Prahlad Yeri wrote: that there are times when you feel low motivation....when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working
Either phrased oddly or those, at least for me, are not the same.
If there is a point in the day where I stop then it is probably because I am tired. So time to call it a day.
If there is a "project" that I don't want to work then it lacks requirements, it lacks a schedule, the schedule is wildly over optimistic or a combination of all of those. And one or more people did not listen when I pointed out those problems.
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1. Switch languages
(The swearing is a bit offensive but Learn a Haskell for Great Good is entertaining and Haskell is a great language.)
2. Write video games or Physics simulations instead of boring business code
3. Create art with your code
4. Create virtual instruments for Cubase/Garage Band/Fruity Loops or create Blender/KDENLive Plugins
5. Find a problem you are passionate about or that really annoys you and fix it with code.
6. Write *short* YouTube posts or blogs about a very specific problem that you can explain better than anyone else.
Last but not least - don't touch no-code/low-code with a ten foot pole. Unless you see an obvious application where no-code/low-code is the easy way out, stay away from that stuff because I believe low-code/no-code drains most passionate developers... Blender geometry nodes are an exception to this. Blender geometry nodes seem to use a no-code/low-code "IDE" that actually makes sense and "gets you results".
NOTE: Code Project will probably flag this post of mine as SPAM. I don't know why but the Code Project algorithm is really bad about flagging me for unknown reasons. Is it a political thing?
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Shawn Eary May2021 wrote: NOTE: Code Project will probably flag this post of mine as SPAM. I don't know why but the Code Project algorithm is really bad about flagging me for unknown reasons. Is it a political thing?
Nope, the automated system has no idea what you politics are, and in fact wouldn't know any politics from a hole in the ground.
The message was flagged, but that's most likely because you posted something it considered dodgy in the past and it takes a number of "legitimate" posts before it takes it's beady little eye off you! Keep posting non-spammy messages like this one, and it'll get bored and look elsewhere fairly soon.
Sorry about that, but the automated system is there for a reason: you would not believe how much spam we got before this was turned on - literally thousands of poost an hour at one point. Unfortunately, a site with 15,000,000 members and a good reputation is considered a "good target" by low IQ spammers and they keep trying new ways to hit us. The automated system tries to detect these (and does a pretty good job) but sometimes a legitimate post gets caught as well and it takes time to teach it that you aren't a risk.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Play one (!) round of online Backgammon (or whatever board or card game you prefer) and get back to the topic afterwards. Can be especially helpful at the beginning of large projects, when there's not a good balance between effort and reward yet.
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Do 1 thing. It goes beyond programming.
But just do 1 thing. Big/small/tiny. Doesn't matter. Do 1 thing.
Don't have to literally write it down, but needs to be something you can do and cross off as done (so much as code is ever ever done).
Now, inertia is no panacea. It doesn't crush it, not at all. But also, sometimes, the interference has nothing to do with code or work or interest level or work ethic or dedication or employer or any of that stuff at all.
Sometimes people just need to not be trying to make their brain microwave itself for a little bit because those resources are busy handling other bits of life.
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Wordle 548 3/6
🟨⬜🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟨🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 548 3/6
⬛⬛🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟨🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 548 3/6
🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟨🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Well, that was difficult! 
I had to think for ages to get from guess 2 to guess 3 ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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