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Here's What's Preventing You From Finishing Projects

Zack Freedman · 147.1K views · 2021-01-09 · 11:28

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Overview

Zack Freedman gives advice on why makers fail to finish projects, including scrapping bad ideas, showing work publicly and writing a plan that keeps projects fun. It is aimed at hardware DIY but generalizes.

On Hacker News

HN finds the project-scoping rubric useful for programmers too and recommends it on finishing side projects.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

Topics

Productivity & self-improvement3D printing, CNC & maker projects
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procrastinationproject scopingdiymotivationmaker

What people said

carb · 2023-06 · Strong recommendation

I love this article and the premise. Further similar reading/watching in some of my favorite Zack Freedman videos! - "Here's What's Preventing You From Finishing Projects": [VIDEO] - "How to Finish Your Weekend Projects in One Weekend": [LINK] "Finishing" more projects (even if that means changing the scope and announcing it "finished") has been amazing for my internal willingness to start new projects or tell friends about them. I have much less anxiety that I'll leave another half-finished project sitting around with lost motivation.

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rhizome · 2022-04 · Recommendation

I came across this video a while back and though I'm not a wearables hardware guy, the rubric he uses is sound for programmer-y stuff too. [VIDEO]

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jld · 2021-09 · Recommendation

I found this video by Zach Freedman about finishing projects to be enlightening, especially the idea that "deciding to not finish a project" is a way to finish a project. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Zack Freedman, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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