The Gospel According to Jock
Jock could not be more dead-on with this post:
... Procrastination is my biggest flaw, either I get obsessed by not wanting to screw up, or scared by not knowing how to begin. Either way I get paralyzed. I get easily sidetracked and distracted. I convince myself I am doing research, or building my skills. Then the longer I wait, the harder it gets to start.
The secret is to just get started. Doesn't matter where, it doesn't have to be right, just get started. Build up a head of steam. Build the smallest thing that is useable, then get people using the software. Then you have people demanding things be fixed and wanting features, it really pushes you forward. No matter what, just make sure you move forward every day. Joel on Software describes this in his Fire and Motion essay.
I haven't completely bought into the whole XP/Agile development thing, but some of it make sense. Streamlined process, and short development cycles keep you moving forward and more responsive to your customer. I suspect it's greatest value is that it makes it harder to procrastinate...
Yep. I'm like the world's most amazing procrastinator. And the man with the shortest attention span ever - I've got about 15 or so projects started and none at any real point of progress. I *know* a lot though, all the good that does me. Nice to see I'm not alone in this personal hell.
Stay tuned... something will happen soon, I'm sure.
-Russ