Friday, April 12, 2013

Beginnings

Never get tired of starting new things. That's not so difficult to do. Maintaining momentum in the middle of a project is difficult. When you first come up with a new idea motivation is fueled by the excitement of possibility.
 I get stuck. An idea, method, materials, execution, product. The execution is most often the hanging point for most of my projects. Often the original plan for execution sometimes is not possible due to unforeseen details. It becomes difficult to enthusiastically rethink a method after the initial excitement has worn off. Here are a couple tips to get over the hump:
Create an idea bank.
It's a place to dump all the crazy ideas. If you're like me the ideas come much faster than is physically possible to execute. I often get an idea and realize it's not the first time it's bubbled to the surface of my conscious. I wish I had noted it down the first time, maybe I would have already acted on it.

 Sidenote: A cool fact about your brain is that the stuff you do, say and think about is just a fraction of what is actually going on in there. What else could be lurking in the depths of your intellect? It would be cool to know what processes are running to allow certain things to surface and others not. Maybe they're not in a format your conscious can handle. Maybe that's what dreams are, your brain making abstract thought comprehensible to the higher (or are they?) functions.........

Anyway, back to the idea of an Idea Bank. I have mine on Google Drive so that I can pull it up from anywhere as the ideas occur. I really like the Mindmeister mind mapping software. There are a lot of great options out there though. This is just where I started and havn't taken the time to try the others, so you might find on that works better for you. Other people have written up thorough reviews of all of the options out there, I'll let you google that out for yourself.
Create a Project Log.
Sometimes it's good to let a project sit for a little while and work on other things for awhile. On the other hand, you can end up repeating a lot of research.
Make a document to contain all the little notes, links, resources, and discoveries you make in the process of fleshing out an idea. You'll save yourself a lot of backtracking.
Comment below to tell us how you maintain momentum through a long project. Stay tuned! Up next: How to make an Arduino Clone!

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