Fueling the Fire

August 30, 2024

Intro

Motivation, though often overlooked, is arguably the strongest influence on a developer’s¹ productivity. While skills, obstacles, and environments define the challenges we face, motivation defines the speed and fervor with which we approach them.

Motivation is dually the great enabler and the great disabler. With sufficient motivation, no challenge is too difficult to overcome; without motivation, no challenge is easy enough to begin.

Decomposition

I conceptualize motivation as a combination of three forces. All three are required to become motivated.

1. Inherent Fire - a deep, primitive desire to obtain something (related to the task at hand)
2. Reachability - an intuitive understanding of how to make immediate progress
3. Whim - the uncountable implicit factors that control a human’s desires

(1) is pretty straight-forward. You aren’t motivated to do things you don’t inherently want. I don’t know where this fire comes from² (it’s probably influenced by personality), or how mutable it is, but it’s hard to deny its existence when you feel it at full-strength. Though the origin of the feeling is usually out of control, it can be directed³.

(2) is mostly a matter of practicality. If you don’t know what the next step is (or if it’s too big), it’s hard to get revved up to do it (because you don’t know how to direct your energy), even if you’re inherently driven. Furthermore, when the next step is obvious and easy, it’s natural for us to want to do it. This usually leads to satisfaction, and thus more motivation, causing a snowballing (or, in this case, forest-fire) positive feedback loop⁴.

(3) is admittedly imprecise, but I think that imprecision necessary because it’s a little different for everybody. In a nutshell, there are a lot of tiny (even subconscious) influences on the brain and body that, when added up, dictate what you “feel like” doing. These influences might include:

• novelty of the task
• mood / mental state
• environment
• bodily state (sickness/pains)

When these factors go wrong, then often result in a mildly ill feeling ("malaise"). Sometimes, you sit down at your computer, and even if (1) and (2) align, it’s hard to bring yourself to the task (and hard to stay focused on it).

Thinking and Doing

When motivation is lacking, there are two primary ways of addressing it⁵.

1. Changing your mindset and “tricking your brain” into becoming motivated
2. Molding the challenge (and the surrounding factors) into a form that is more motivating

The effectiveness of (1) lies in the ability to “correct” the inefficiency of the mind. In theory, reachability and whim are entirely internal to the mind⁶, and there’s no reason why we can’t use mental gymnastics (logic, meditation, etc.) to undo (at least some of) their negative effects.

(2) is a matter of changing your workflows (how you approach the challenge), or even choosing different (or rephrased) challenges in the first place.

Both of these tools are useful, but can be counterproductive when used in the wrong place. (1) is more fit for fighting short-term inconveniences⁷. It’s the “white-knuckle” approach - necessary to resolve immediate, non-recurring difficulties, but otherwise unsustainable. You can’t trick your brain forever. Conversely, (2) should only be used for relatively long-term fixes. Changing procedures for a single occasion will cause distraction.

Conquering Whim

The following are strategies I’ve found helpful for battling misaligned whim (the most evasive aspect of motivation).

• Fight to stay excited about your current pursuit
  • Finish projects/studies quickly, before they go sour
    • Don’t spend 80% more time for 20% extra gains
      • “Have a goal; accomplish it, then leave”⁸
  • Try to do what you feel like doing, not what you feel obligated to do⁹
    • Or otherwise try to find a balance¹⁰
  • Accept Imperfection (the cult of done)
  • Spend your kreplits wisely
    • Don’t spend a kreplit when you’ll get cut off or won’t use it (e.g. in an environment you can’t focus)
    • Don’t let novelty rot (if you’re excited about something, make it a priority to address before it goes stale)
• Encourage novelty (both in development and life in general)
  • Expose yourself to new technical topics
  • Spend time doing things that require different mental frames than development

Relative Motivation

At any given moment, you can score all possible activities by your motivation to do them.

Generally, the activity you choose to do (when given the choice, e.g. in your free time) will rank relatively highly. And when you force yourself to do something that doesn’t rank very high, it will be difficult to sustain (because more-highly-ranked activities will draw you in).

For an action to be considered (or high enough) in the ranking, it must have a sufficient level of reachability (e.g. you aren’t motivated¹¹ to play xbox when you’re driving to work). You can imagine that a few “baseline” actions are always reachable, e.g.

• doing nothing at all¹²
• thinking (about whatever comes to mind)
• checking your phone

This can be a useful framework for understanding why you are drawn to certain actions.

If your highest-motivated actions are undesirable, you might want to consider decreasing their reachability to bring them below the motivation-level of the actions you’d rather do.