When the goal is too big, I procrastinate, but I don’t give up
Updates on 26 Feb to 6 Mar
It has been two weeks since the last update. Here is the report and the result of these two weeks of time. (Video of what I have accomplished click here)


I completed around 70% of the menu, that user can open by typing the slash (like Notion). There are however also lots of fine tune to be done. (Btw the app I am using is Focus To-do.)
And I spent around 9 hours in total in the development of the app. Honestly speaking for a story size feature, I think the process isn’t too bad. The real problem here is why I committed less than a thought into this project.
I planned to give in 16 hours a week to this project. But something is holding me back. Most of the time was contributed at the first few day after I blogged about the plan of this project. I was full of motivation.
But then I realise the difficulties of this project. Slatejs, the framework I use for the note editor isn’t easy to learn. In addition, I am doing test driven development, which is also new to me. Plus I am also using Typescript, which I hasn’t achieve a level of proficiency.
I tried to kill the many birds with one stone. And I underestimate the difficulty of it.
Am I changing the way I am doing it? No I am not. But to overcome the fear, I will have to cut the project size to a level that I am comfortable to deal with. Here is a few new rules that I set to myself:
- It will not be a note taking app, but a text editor with different mode user can choose (Notion like with short key enhancement and mark editor type)
- After finishing the note editor, I can choose to drop out of this project or put a hold on it.
The size of the project shrink to two month size, with large enough buffer that I am comfortable. For this stage, keep going on with a foreseeable result is the most important to me. Without persistent, I have no chance accomplishing anything. With too much pressure, however I can’t move. I will procrastinate.
With the above adjustment, the goal is in a good size that I can keep moving on.
Subscribe to the newsletter to get the lates update on the journal of building my own apps!