Let me summarise: 1. Stop watching RUclips 2. Stop commenting 3. Pretty please, with sugar on top. Finish your f'ng project. Yeah. Thanks. I'll go and finish one of my projects. Hopefully...
If I've got it right, "Personal projects have a unique requirement that you must optimize for: 'finishing the damn project'. Everything else is secondary."
It’s more important to finish picking which project to work on than it is to pick the perfect project to finish! If you’re worried about committing to the wrong one then you shouldn’t be. Saying “I’m not going to finish this project I’m not coming back to this” also counts as finishing a project (because you’re re-defining scope). Obviously you don’t want to do that for every project and you should consider wrapping it up as some smaller deliverable but I think that’s often overlooked. Some projects are just not helpful and shouldn’t be finished.
When I was in startups, there was a saying: “Done is better than perfect”. This applies doubly for personal projects. I fight this every damn day with my projects. Thank you for making this vid. 😊
I've worked for companies where this line of thought was used to justify doing craptastic work though. As a perfectionist myself, I'm always fighting myself trying to make sure I'm not spending eons to get the last few percent. But the aforementioned companies would just put lipstick on pig shit and say "it's fine" because the customer PROBABLY wouldn't notice
I’ve heard it in a different way, the way i’ve heard it was “Perfection is the enemy of Great. Seeking perfection will only result in failure. Perfection is failure.”
I’ve always liked the saying “perfection is the enemy of good enough.” Perfection also seems to be the enemy of me… so by the transitive property… I’m good enough 😢? I didn’t expect a therapy breakthrough today, thanks Joe!
Am a systems engineer. Yes, 70% of my job is just trying to get information out of people so I can give it to other people. 20% is waving a knife at the CEO/boss/client because they keep wanting to change specs, and 10% is technical verification. Add another 20% to V&V if they actually manage to change the project requirements, and then act surprised when there's repercussions.
Same here lol. I'm an R&D Lab manager for a major chip company and it's half me trying to get info out of people smarter than me and half me explaining to execs that we still can't break the laws of physics. Every time we try to do that, new physics appears to stop us.
Probably varies between companies, but for me being one is more like being the lead engineer whose main task is developing the highest level of requirements for the project, while also project managing at the discipline level, reviewing their work to make sure there aren't cross-discipline conflicts like violating their respective requirements (e.g. a thermal engineer designing a block of metal with no space for anything else), and doing the work the other disciplines don't have the capacity to do (e.g. system software, troubleshooting, testing, mechanical/electrical/process/compliance). There are subsystem engineers on some projects as well that work closer to the disciplines, but again depends on the project.
Totally agree. The one thing I'd like to add is that safety is more important than finishing - if you push a product to the finish line by cutting safety, you're gonna get hurt.
@@remotepinecone If it's bad time management causing me to lose income because I don't get a project done in time, personally I'd still rather take my chances having sleep for dinner over being reckless enough to risk putting my hand in a lathe. If it's outside forces compelling me to put myself in that situation you're really just describing exploitation, which is not really the kind of situation you find many backyard from-scratch rocketry enthusiasts in.
Yeah. And I've spent most of my professional life in industries where if you sprint to the finish neglecting safety, the _public_ is gonna get hurt. But Joey B knows about that too, his hobby is public-safety-adjacent. (That's why they fly way off in the middle of the desert, in temporarily restricted airspace.)
I found the root cause for me abandoning projects. If you split what it takes to complete the project into small tasks of what needs to be done, you can sort them by how interesting/useful/joyful it is to do. When I run out of tasks that are interesting to do I just gradually lose interest it the whole project, because it becomes too much like work and not like a hobby.
Maybe you didn't start the project because you needed it finished? Maybe those interesting/useful/joyful bits were the point of the project? Once done, you were technically done with the scoped part of the project, the rest was just fluff.
@@1kreature true, I mostly start projects because I'm interested in some specific technology or game mechanic. Once it is done or clear to me I lose interest fairly quickly.
So to sum up: - if a project is cheap but unfinished, it's a full waste of money and time, result is less than 0. - if a project requires more money than optimal, but finishes, it's just a slightly more expensive product than expected, result is greater than 0 it actually applies to quite a lot of topics, not only engineering.
Overthinking and overoptimizing small parts often lead to feeling overwhelmed with a project, which can result in abandoning it instead of just getting it done. Learning this changed my entire perspective whenever I get stuck. It's hard to realize this on your own, so hearing it in a video can be incredibly helpful. Great video!
Also, doing the less perfect but finished thing shows you thzt you can do it, frees you from the project, and allows you to see what it would be good to improve next time. The thing on which you should have spent more time is seldom the one you felt you should more time on. Refining details in a prototype is usually a loss of time. When your project is the first of its kind you tackle, keep it small. You're more likely to finish it and learn in the process what you need to know for the big one.
Fully agreed! Once the project is completed, you can always go back and refine the dirty parts or simply take the lessons learned for the next project. This way, you won't feel overwhelmed by an unfinished project hanging over your head, since it's already done
this was really important for me to hear. I've been working on a pretty big software project for the last year or so, and ive been way too focused on making sure each element was done as efficiently and as bug-free as possible, and progress has been really slow. I was optimising for perfection, which is a pretty dumb thing to optimise for in retrospect. I should be optimising for progresss, and just completing it. This was a real kick in the pants for me, thank you joey-b.
Solo slogs are just that, feedback-free solo journeys through self-doubt. Know that there are goals beyond your ken that mean more to The Steakholders than you could ever imagine, if you are able to walk the stupid line. Ugh.
For a addon accessory for automatic gates that I am building I got a little too focused on making it easy to setup and ease of assembly that I have slowed my development progress. I plan to sell them eventually but I want it to be easy to assemble, which is a little difficult to do when building them in your spare time.
This is exactly what I needed to hear, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds its crazy hard to bring projects over the finish line. Thanks for the inspiration and I am at my white board right now setting out exactly what I need to do to finish.
I think this is a great distillation of why minimum viable products exist: when it's the first time something is being done (by you/organization/group), it's more important to ship than to be perfect, because once you have something, you can put it out into the world for people to see/use/critique. It is an opportunity to find out "is this the right thing?" and then improve upon it.
Yes! Preach my dude! Absolutely loved this video. This has been a topic on my mind frequently recently. I struggled a lot with this while leading my university's Baja SAE team (as well as the small projects I did on the side). Getting paranoid about not knowing how to run a project after I graduated, I read the book "The Mechanical Design Process" by David G. Ullman. In Chapter 4 - Section 4, he has a wicked "Product Maturity S Curve" diagram where the independent axis is time, dependent axis is maturity. The various stages go like this: New Product -> Make it Work -> Make it Work Properly -> Maximize Performance -> Maximize Efficiency -> Maximize Reliability -> Minimize Cost -> Mature Product. Treat every personal project like a new product for yourself or a new invention for the world. As per that diagram, the FIRST thing that should be done is get the damned thing to work. Whether you stick around to make it super-duper awesome and perfect is another issue, but every product should EXIST first to then get the in-depth iterative design love it needs. Like Joey said, whatever design work you're doing, the main driving requirement behind it should be to get it done. I’m just a dude trying to be a better engineer at home and in the office, I don’t know everything. Joey already did a beautiful job communicating the point in the vid, but I just thought I’d share some of my own learnings for those who read the comments, and care.
I loved this so much. I get so swamped down in the individual pieces and get discouraged that my approaches or implementation aren't good enough, but I need to FINISH THE F'ING PROJECT. Thanks for this, and Merry Christmas!
I'm so happy to hear someone else feels this way. I've always tried to sprint to a minimum viable product, and then improve features one at a time until my project comes to a "complete" state (or approaches a "complete" state).
I've learned to mark projects as MVP too, my trick is to plan out my big, huge, impossible goals as the "complete" status I know I'm never going to meet, then say "Okay, for this first phase, my MVP is this" and that's the part that actually gets done.
TLDR …. Better is the enemy of good enough. There is ALWAYS a cheaper or lighter or better performing version of ‘the thing’…..but chasing the perfect solution will KILL progress and you’ll never get closer to the finish line. Could every little bit of a big personal project be better? Sure….but chasing them all is a guaranteed way to never get across the line and ensure failure.
That is part of making a good requirements list. It shouldn't just be a list of unbounded wants. EG: 10kg lifting capacity needs to be split into an upper and lower bounds.
100% as someone who wants to hyper optimize everything. and i realize this leads to rabbit holes that never let me finish a project. As of late what ive done is when i am in the middle of a project i just tell myself -" The mantra for today is: Good enough" and as i work when i start to hyper focus on something i really try to just push through and repeat to myself "ITS good enough" this has helped me keep moving and while yes the projects are never completed. they do acomplish the original tasks i set out to do and i can ALWAYS come back and optimize further later.
Brilliant point. I felt called out when you said I know the type of people watching this. Yes, I have sooooo many unfinished projects, it’s crazy. Thank you for the push, good sir.
Systems engineer here for interal combustion engines. The definition of “systems engineering” varies strongly by who you ask but most of the job is communicating to the right info the the right people at the right time. Its much less engineering in the traditional sense and more of a project manager. Totally agree with you here that “finish the project” is requirement #1. Its something lost on a lot of makers but is drilled into engineers from day 1. Engineering is a series of trade offs and at some point you have to say “good enough”. When you’re trading off x% more optimization for actually finishing your project, thats being a bad engineer. Personal projects benefit particularly from making use of the 80/20 rule and its why I like your channel(s) so much. You make a point to say “good enough” and move on to the next step. Would love to see more “Joe talks at a whiteboard videos”
I think the thermal paste nitpick comes from PC builders and isn't even about cost. The popular consensus online is that adding too much thermal paste is bad for heat transfer. When I watched the video I almost commented about it before the final time was revealed. I would have guessed that that much paste would have actually lessened the runtime of the camera. I was genuinely surprised the final time was better - and by a lot.
It's a bit of a misconception that thermal paste is an insulator in large quantities. Thermal paste *is* a tradeoff between thermal conductivity and ease of application and ensuring contact between the two parts, but it doesn't insulate. There's better things for heat transfer in the camera, like milling a heat block to the right heights so that each component only has a thin layer of paste, but paste is *way* better than air, and the goal is get the camera to run for long enough to launch, not run indefinitely.
Really interesting video. I'm a systems engineer at a defence company so that was a fun watch. I think ultimately the requirements are key. Engineering IS requirements. Knowing what requirements can be sacrificed or changed is what makes a project successful. Too often I have seen badly defined requirements drive a project to failure, even if it is "completed"!! This goes for personal projects too. You say completing is more important, but how is that requirement defined? Finished in 2 weeks? By the next video upload? Before i retire? There is a big difference between those and that defines the plan. If cost is key, which i think it is for everyone, then actually it might be less important to complete the project and bankrupt yourself. Cheap, fast and good. Pick two, but sometimes you can only pick one.
this is the most technical and long winded way to say "I'm aiming at finishing the project, so get off my back internet!". And I loved every second of it.
100% makes sense and it’s clear why you’re so productive. To me, the challenge is that you can’t fire anyone in the personal project space. Only the project can be fired. I think personal projects have to be run like volunteer roles; you have to keep the energy up more than anything else. Give people the things they need to not quit, celebrate early and often, etc. Yet another role that you have to do on your own. :P
What I like for my personal project and to keep myself accountable is deadline. Most projects I fail are happening when I am only held accountable by myself. I am taking part in a yearly tractor parade for christmas. The deadline is not going to move - it is scheduled and it will happen. I get like 80% of the work done in the 2 months leading up to the parade because I get lost in requirements and overengineering in the remaining 10 months of the year. As the deadline is moving closer and closer I start to cut and get more and more focussed on what matters. The most valuable thing in personal projects is to have friends and peers that are interested in your results or at least are good at pretending to be. Schedule a presentation of a result at some date - the earlier the better. Feedback loops are important and nothing feels more rewarding than feedback. This does come with the anxiety of being rejected, but either that motivates you or you move on to a project that feels more rewarding. Joe has this in the form of his RUclips channel and I imagine that it's a great source of motivation to finish something and present it, even if its a nose cone that is well protected from child support. Eventually these incremental presentations lead to the big results like a rocket launch.
Omg all of this. Do your best work... just not 5 days from deadline. You'll learn not to do that for next year but *damn*. Arbitrary deadlines are still deadlines!
i find myself trying to get approval from friends or family halfway through a project or at the start and usually at that stage it doesn't look good, like i make a functional prototype to prove that the main idea of the project works then it dies at that stage. it's like i want someone to be as invested as me to keep working on the project. Negative comments like your wasting your time/money or just go buy that(something close to what im building but with less quality and functionality) instead of building this, drains half the enthusiasm and makes it harder to keep going. damn environment and people around you play a huge role
@VarkaTheDragon Yeah.. I keep telling myself to start early and more planned but then after a few weeks the project goes onto idle until I start the crunch. @@Bursty55 I think when rejection becomes chronical you need to find a different peer group - maybe you have a local Maker / Hackerspace. Maybe there are discord communities around the subject you enjoy? I personally share most with (former) co-workers that I happened to have shared hobbies with and sometimes it becomes a collaboration.
I agree! My rant is that most "engineering" on RUclips is not engineering it's advanced making. Design engineering is about evaluating concepts that meet the requirements.
Absolutely agree!!! Finishing is everything! Optimize and redesign for version 2!! You will learn with every project but you will NEVER finish if you are constantly churning the design. Some changes are great but at some point you MUST draw the line and just finish and punt all the NEW design ideas for the next version.
Well said! I completely agree but I’ve never had words to describe this! It’s so easy for decision making to get bogged down on the smaller details and these can derail an entire project.
Perfectly clear. The "Personal Project" column also applies to "real" projects - even the Military Industrial Complex needs to complete projects occasionally.
meh, not unless there is an actual war where they need to work. there is lots of "paper products" that do not work and "peace time weapons" Where the main requirement is that it should not be able to cause harm during training and severly limits actual wartime functionality. Laser, Railgun and HPM weapons are a few examples of big budget systems with limited real applications. With government work you can always stamp your testresults as classified and move on to the next iteration :)
This video was certainly optimized on finishing it, rather than the clarity on if you want us or don't want us to finish our projects 😂 (at least in the first half of the vid) 100%agree with you though!
So at 13:00 you're trying to express that money is important just not the great filter. So a good way to think about this is in terms of personal finances. You cannot finish the project if all of your time is spent paying off the debt you accrued to work on the project. That's why staying in a budget is important, yes, but being able to float dollars and cost when necessary is also important.
Thank you for posting this video - I really needed it. I’ve been working on a passion project for the past ~2 years, and it has really been kicking my butt lately. This was really helpful for inspiring me to get going on it again.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been super nervous that my SCARA robotic arm project will just fade away without me finishing it. Thankfully "keep moving forward" is getting easier as I make more engineer style salaries XD
Great video! You got your point across. Currently I am working on a TicTacToe Robot which will just not work for whatever reason. Seeing other peoples projects on RUclips really makes it seem so easy and I feel like the stuff I do is too simple. So what im going to do is: Finish that god damn robot and the suspension on my rc car! Thanks for that reminder.
Procrastination, time constraints, and perfectionism probably my great filter. Awesome video Joe! The message was clear, its important to focus on the steps toward completion, instead of optimizing first. Elon Musk said something similar with the starship program. 13:40 lol
My best take on systems engineering is that they take top level requirements and decompose them into subsystem requirements (like the gain of the yagi needs to be +12dBi to meet the 10 mile range requirement) for each subsystem or component, then makes sure that the test programs are in place such that as smaller parts are put together you get closer and closer to proving that the system will work and pass it's overall tests. Goal being to catch issues early and adjust so that everything is fine in the end.
This is your best video so far. I'm a retired software engineer who has designed and am building a proof-of-concept prototype of a brand new kind of 3D printer and have been working on it for over a year. So many roadblocks I've overcome, so many setbacks. Yesterday I almost had a nervous breakdown from working on one aspect of the project for three weeks with zero progress, until late at night when finally it actually worked and I can now move on to the next impossible step. My overall objective is having this as the basis for a new start-up company that manufactures and sells this new type of 3D printer. But for now I still need to Finish The Project of actually getting the prototype working. I often watch your videos as a source of inspiration to get me back working on my project when everything seems to be going to hell. So, a big thank you for this particular video. I'm glad you finally got around to completing it and making it available for the countless number of people doing their own personal project and who once in a while need that kick-in-the-pants to get back working on it.
As a guy who operates the in the software space, I think this is an important video for me. It's so easy to go down the rabbit hole of writing new libraries or reimplementing some complex algorithm for "efficiency" when in reality it would be better to take the loss on performance to ACTUALLY FINISH THE PROJECT
I admit it, I have a couple big unfinished projects where I got lost in the weeds then got distracted. Totally guilty of biting off too much at once. No, you don't need to learn pcb layout, mechanical CAD, firmware, and device drivers all in the same project. On the other hand, while the project isn't DONE, I did learn a lot, and finished several other projects as part of my procrastination.
There are a lot of know-it-all "you must do things my way" type of people on the Internet. Using the thermal paste example, many people, on their first attempt, will do similar to what you did and go crazy overboard to get their task done. It's not the wrong way to do it, it's just figuring out what works. After you figure out what works, then you can optimize to get down to a less expensive use of thermal paste that doesn't overly weigh down your drone, that is only marginally behind the target timeline for the overall project. But in the case of the space shot, you do what you need to do, and don't get weighed down or worn down by what these Internet know-it-alls are bitching at you about. I've been really enjoying your videos, and even though they aren't instructional videos, I've learned a few things from you in a fun and entertaining way. Thanks for sharing with us the things you've been doing, and the love for your hobby.
To nuance the message a bit: not every project needs to meet your original goals, but every project needs to have a clear end. Some projects were never going to fly. Some projects are object lessons learned the hard way. Some projects exist to prove that an approach cannot work. Sometimes you start the project knowing that it’s strictly for education, but not always. “Finishing” a project doesn’t always mean a launch; sometimes it means accepting that there’s nothing more to be gained by continued investment. Constantly review your requirements to see whether they’re practical within your financial, time, and skill constraints, and be as aggressive in cutting scope as you can afford to be. When there’s nothing left to be done, stop - even if it’s not finished (or functional). And if there *is* still work to be done? Get it done.
I am a systems engineer and you’re spot on. Furthermore, even when Bolocmartin3Grummin starts a project, their early prototype phases aren’t about cost or systems design, they’re about delivering a barely functional prototype at any cost. And yes, I also thought about starting a podcast about this..
Everything you said about personal projects is true in industry as well, especially for small companies and small production runs. Often times project decisions are optimized for the amount of engineering effort required compared to the alternative. Then after the product launches you get people who contributed nothing to your project coming out of the woodwork to take a shit on some aspect of it. Like "I wouldn't have gone with that vendor" (the one who turned the quote around the fastest and had the part on the shelf), or "That component is over specced for what it's doing and could be cheaper/smaller" (the one with a reliable datasheet and plenty of design margin, that passed testing without requiring further analysis or other changes to the system). The best response I know of is "those are going to be optimised in phase 2", even though phase 2 never happens 😊
Thanks for this. I've also fallen victim to not finishing because I looked up the best practices and then overcomplicate it for factors that don't really apply in my case like optimising for unit cost or for the ability for 10 other people to pick up where I left off for instance. I think in the end, optimizing for what helps me specifically get this one instance of the project done is what I need to do better.
I think the worst part about being an engineer is my biggest worry is not that the project doesn't get finished but that my section is not optimized. When I go home to do my personal projects, I no longer worry about finishing the project but optimizing. Thanks for making this video because I think it hits the root of why I don't finish my projects anymore.
I liked this a lot. I sort of live by this already, but I haven't thought of it consciously. It made me feel better about my own not-so-perfect solutions in the large projects that I've finished. Actually, I have a 1-up for you: Test early, and along the way. Spend twice the time by playing with it during the build process. Driving the frame of a car around the back yard or running the empty skeleton of a huge app project is fun, gives new inspiration to finish, and may change the requirements drastically to the point where if you had just finished the normal route, the project would have been worse, less fun, or just never finished.
Crystal clear! It took me a lot of time, disappointment and unfinished projects to really shift my mind set to this. I always try to keep in mind, "Path of least resistance first. Optimize later." Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you Joey, I've been pushing for the same thing the last few years but you explained it really well. i always think that worst case scenario is shelving a project but that for me is normally a result of budget being cut from life but the beauty of that is its always available to be picked back up for me :)
Systems engineering is like 90% finding ways to get teams to collaborate by speaking the same language and sharing relevant information, so yea your “errbody play nice” is about right lol. But yea I hear your message Joe. One thing to remember with the big orgs is that they are generally designing for mass production or for their solution to be eventually replicated; it is just as much about building the ecosystem and support infrastructure as it is building the demo or fundamental capability. Personal projects are generally “prototypes”-it is not a bad thing to build out your tools and infrastructure when possible, but that’s not the objective and shouldn’t keep you from pushing toward the finish line. Thanks for the reminder to go finish a project😅
I love how the "shorts" are a 15 minute video as apposed to the 30-45 minute videos on the main channel 😂 I actually really found this insightful though, I constantly get into the scenario of starting up my own personal project/s that wind up getting stuffed in the cupboard because there was this one issue I couldn't tackle, which caused the whole project to fail. Thanks for the awesome content Joe!
I did also want to ask, actually, how do you (or anyone else) deal with not being able to start a project because of "analysis paralysis" or even just wanting to do so many different things that you can't pick one? I often face this predicament, which leaves me not even starting something because I fear that it is doomed to fail.
Guilty as charged! Typically my projects are frozen at the exact point where I have a full understanding of them. When I finished the designed, did all the preliminary research, built the prototypes, practiced the methods and started the main build then comes the point I realize I am now confident I know how to finish it. When I have a clear to do list, with a full mastery of the required technologies, processes and components that is the exact point the whole thing grinds to a stop for a lengthy and undetermined length of time and I start thinking about a new idea...
As a manufacturing engineer/CNC programmer, I completely understood your rant and your whiteboard analysis is spot on. The company I work for, we will burn through thousands and thousands of dollars on R&D to get the RF data desired, I know there have been a few occasions that I lost count on how many revisions I had to program a machined component for…I think my record is 7. Optimizing the manufacturing process comes after proof of concept. Follow-through is important on a personal and professional level. I know it’s fun to be sarcastic and say, “Why finish a project, when you can start 3 more.” There are only a few things that I obsess over…please chew with your mouth closed Mr. Neanderthal. Why yes, I do clean my ears every day, thank you for asking, and finishing any project I start. I think the important message you’re trying to convey is at times it is difficult to remain motivated on a long-term project. Stepping back for a moment can lead into stepping back for a day, or a week, or even months to years, then it’s just sad pile. I enjoy your builds and how you present them. Dwane
As a programmer we have something similar: *"premature optimization"* (spending excessive time optimizing code too early in the development process) versus *"shipping"* (releasing a functional product to users, prioritizing getting a working version out quickly rather than focusing on minute performance details).
Also keep in mind most personal projects will not and are never intended to be 1.0, they are prototypes intended to prove something, or just be a one off to do something. Think v0.1. Everything starts as an alpha.
Joe, Well said! After over 60 years of projects from huge multi million dollar machine tools to building my own personal vehicle "getting to the point where you are actually done with the project and having it work" is the most difficult part. Pragmatism , persistence bull headedness and a strong internal personal need to make it to the end are what I use to get projects done. Rex
This makes perfect sense. I’ve been doing systems engineering for a while and the only suggestion I’d like to make is all of your scenarios actually come down to time as the great filter. Can you get enough budget in time to fund the whole project or is it worth while to budget an MVP or even a POC instead? Scenario 2 is just, can I obtain all required personnel in time to complete the project? 3 is just how much time you can sink into it before another project will take over as primary. All projects (or life in general) will get solved in the end. It may not be the outcome you were looking for. Just remember that deadlines are a pain, but they can also reduce risk. The shorter timeframe you can get things done helps you reduce the variance that time will bring. Doesn’t matter if it’s a required software upgrade that may break functionality or winning the lottery… your environment (and life) will change over time.
Wow JB, I can't tell you how salient and timely that was. I was just perusing a notebook for this year and discovering that almost everything has been a "false start". What I really needed was to damn the perfect solution, and embrace the good enough to FINISH.
Joey B! Joey B. Hey. It's alright. You're built different. I needed to hear this as I'm in the middle of a bunch of upgrades to my house and a million things are stopping me from finishing. But I'm determined to focus on the insulation until it's done. Well, and painting the bedroom... Thank you for this!
good point.getting something done/working is the main challenge, and there are so many rabit-holes and "improvements" that can distract and prevent completing something. It's better to get something working, then revisit and improve, than never get anything finished.
As a ME student, I definitely needed to hear this. I've had several personal projects, Mechanical Claws, Stirling Engines, etc. that I would go down rabbit holes trying to find the perfect solution for a specific problem and I'd end up rushing to get the project done last minute because I spent so long on that one specific thing. The one thing would be perfect and then everything else was rushed and last minute. I wish one of my professors would've told us this.
In personal projects, the cost / time / quality equation is a personal one. For a functional project like your rockets, the floor on quality is a functional threshold "does it work?" Beyond that, the cost / time trade off will be a function of affordability vs desire to move onto the next project - modified by a desire to inhouse stuff to gain knowledge (which I suspect is the main purpose of the project). This is a pretty commercial approach as ultimately time is money. I can think of other RUclipsrs who max out quality, minimise cost, but are lavish with their time. Its obviously not a viable commercial approach, but it is valid in a hobbyist context, procided that you have the patience and focus. Me? Good enough depends on how long I expect to live with the project. Your projects are inherently disposable so (provided they work) quality compromises will be regret free. Excellent video BTW
Got me right in the gut! As a Project Manager in real life, this makes complete sense, and I struggle to get my personal project across the finish line. I have restarted this motor test stand like 14 million times...
I've done Systems Engineering and Applications Engineering at Analog Devices, your understanding checks out, It was a lot of having everyone play nice and making sure a stage's outputs are compatible with the next stage's inputs, my systems apps role was combining multiple ADI technologies / business units into one larger system to build a larger scale demos so this may differ to individual business units systems apps. All in all though, it's definitely the most fun, you get to deal with lots of different types of engineering (Software, hardware, mechanical, pneumatics) and talk to all of the individual groups, you're not down in the weeds worrying about the chip design, it's more of you actually using the chips that someone else as designed.
I'm sort of a mentor at my company and I love this. I'm adding this to my list of platitudes alongside "perfect is the enemy of done" and "good enough is good enough"
Two years into a "Hmm I wonder if this would work" This resonates heavily - I am finally almost done and so so happy for some of my questionable decisions that saved effort on my end (Tom scott's art of the bodge is also really good at communicating this message)
I have a 3D printed flintlock Nerf gun, all the parts printed, the stock and body in wood PLA. I need to do coloring, weathering and generally post production stuff... It's been sitting in my closet disassembled in a box for a year now. I have a proxmox server for personal self-hosting stuff, I wanted to network my printer through it, sitting for 6 months. I wanted to make a nice 3D printed case for my desk electronics (USB and audio passthrough for mouse, keyboard and headphones and switch between my main PC and my Steamdeck dock). My fancy switchable USB 3 hub is sitting disassembled in my toolbox. I wanted to make a VTOL drone/RC airplane, stuck at phase 1, I have a giant foamboard slow flier that flew only once and got stuck in a tree as a result. Done a lot of theorycrafting after that but it's been sitting in my shed, unfinshed... Don't be me, learn how to finish your projects. Give yourself a scope, perfect is the enemy of finished... KISS, all the usual stuff, it's dumb, but it works. I'm learning. When upgrading my 2017 Tevo Tarantula to 2024 standards I wanted to go big, build some big Voron Core XY monstrosity, started to plan towards that, but then I realized that I was doing it again, only this time with a critical piece of equipment for all my other projects. I can't afford right now to remain without it, so I got to work reducing the scope, first I thought a Switchwire conversion, then reduced it even more. Today my Tarantula has a magnetic PEI bed, a eddy probe for auto-leveling, a Hemera XS Revo direct extruder, a PI4 with Klipper, a 7-inch touch display and a bunch of macros to turn on and off the PSU and Raspberry in a smart way. Is a bedslinger with a single Z rod the best design going into 2025? Probably not, but I finished the project, it works, it's reliable, and I cut 50 to 80% of my maintainance/downtime by removing manual bed leveling alone. Keep your project scopes in check. I love this channel because I can see you rant to yourself when building supersonic rockets in the same way I do when designing a monitor stand/drawer/electronic box for my desk.
Great video! It's so true that everyone is a critic until they try to accomplish anything of significance. BTW, My brother is a perfectionist inventor and his problem includes throwing out a project after lots of effort. Sometimes, he throws out perfectly usable things simply because it is not "perfect" enough.
I work in engineering the sales channel for engineers. Our data shows that the biggest risk to sales is not losing to our competition. It's not that we have the wrong features, or too expensive, or bad support. It's... ... the project getting cancelled. So even engineers in the corporate world struggle with not finishing.
Yes! 100% this. Zack Freedman also has some rants about this in some of his videos 3 or 4 years ago, and you nailed another take on the completionist mindset you need to adopt. I am an engineer that has aspired to do cool home projects like all my college friends and all the amazing content I see online. So of course my house is littered with unfinished projects that I have ADHD bounced away from. Went with the CGP Grey theme year concept instead of new year's resolutions, and I am wrapping up 2024 as the "Year of Completion" where I just circled back to a bunch of home (and professional) projects and just focused on finishing or at least advancing them instead of starting something new. I of course broke the rule a bit as I found new things I needed to learn, but always in the scope of a current project. And it was amazing, to the point where I am just going to repeat it in 2025 (because I still have that many unfinished projects...) and keep rolling. A bunch of home servers up and running, a playable game in Godot that did well in a Game Jam, finished building a 3d printer with an Octoprint upgrade, and finished writing a few programs both for home and for work. Next year will be finishing up learning the basics of Blender for 3D printing, grabbing a Jetson Nano for AI server tests, using ESP32s for whole home temperature monitoring, and then just finishing some DIY home renovations. Learning and the journey are both really awesome, but even better is having a finished project to use, show off to friends, or add to a portfolio. Your concept of "is the work I am doing really lending itself to finishing the project or should I find an alternative?" is going to be bouncing around my head for the next 12 months. Great video.
As a steering committee GM this year - we launched 3 projects/products this year, 2 of which are still in development. I COMPLETELY understand this, and needed to see this to make sure that those other two projects are dragged across the finish line in 2025. THANK YOU!
I think it's really important to state that it's also perfectly fine to not finish projects if the goal of the project was to learn something new whilst making a thing. I came to terms with the fact that I most often don't finish projects I start, but I learn a ton during the personal project and that was way more important anyway. I now actively structure projects to maximise the learning, I'm currently learning RF electronics in my spare time and have no intention of building my own SDR. I will probably during the project make my own FPGA board and maybe even my own basic analog frontend,. I'll be able to pick up some useful RF/high speed PCB design techniques that I'll be able to use in my job, and probably earn more pay for doing so. The journey is often just as important as the destination.
I don't normally comment, but as a person who works as a systems engineer who also has personal projects. This is spot on. Completely different mindset. Thank you for the reminder
I am going to remember and reference this video for the rest of my life. As someone who is constantly faced with analysis paralysis, and trying to get things done in a perfect, efficient, optimized way, I needed to hear this. Just. Do. The. Thing.
Dude, this and your last video are fantastic, informative, and hilarious. I think a lot of people, myself included would love you to do more stuff like this, project rants, project postmortems, etc.
It's rare to find a video that recontextualises a bunch of stuff and makes me think in greater depth about decisions that i am going to make in the next few days and hereafter, thank you!
You are absolutely right, I have to admit to starting several projects and when I hit a wall, starting another one, ending up not finishing anything or at least not being able to cope with resuming the project, trying to figure out what I was trying to do, ending up doing the same thing twice.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Why Finish the project when I can start 3 more.
Ow, ow ow. Don't hit me like that!
I blame the ideas that keep coming
@@abdullahahmed6326 yeah. I got 4 or 5 personal projects going on. Its hard to decide which one of them I should work on when I'm free
Why finish the project when I can just talk about how cool it will be when it's done
There are no words to describe how much I love this comment
I feel attacked. But in a good way
I feel 'seen' I guess? Omg this explains *so much*.
Let me summarise:
1. Stop watching RUclips
2. Stop commenting
3. Pretty please, with sugar on top. Finish your f'ng project.
Yeah. Thanks.
I'll go and finish one of my projects. Hopefully...
me too 😅😂
This was the pep talk I needed lol
me too.....
If I've got it right, "Personal projects have a unique requirement that you must optimize for: 'finishing the damn project'. Everything else is secondary."
What's right is what works 👍🏼
I think my wife will object ^^
@ChrisBigBad did you not see Lord of the rings. So you entered into a legal agreement with the gold and diamond empire.
Unless you are a little short on cash too
@capkenway the money is a slave hoax . It's printed at your debt and taxed..money only works if the average person doesn't have any ⛏️
I love the way this video follows its own principles on a meta-level
This explanation is not going to win any awards but THE VIDEO IS DONE
We shipped it!!! Fuck it, it's time for the bar. Ugh.
My exakt sentiments while watching the video and it just felt healthy in the most wholesome way. This video 100% resonated with me.
You know, I think there is a *distinct* possibility it is more fun to start a project than finish it. Someone should look into that.
my previous comment shoulda been here. Project Comment failed successfully.
It was taking too long to count all my unfinished projects, so now I'm building a project counting device.
I started to look into it but my work bench project was more interesting, until I started re-gearing my truck.
No. Finishing a project is also really fun. Starting a new project is, 99.9% of the time easier, which makes for faster short term gratification
Trust me buddy, my serotonin levels are immeasurable compared to project starters
Instructions unclear, stuck in crippling choice paralysis over which project to finish first.
It’s more important to finish picking which project to work on than it is to pick the perfect project to finish!
If you’re worried about committing to the wrong one then you shouldn’t be. Saying “I’m not going to finish this project I’m not coming back to this” also counts as finishing a project (because you’re re-defining scope). Obviously you don’t want to do that for every project and you should consider wrapping it up as some smaller deliverable but I think that’s often overlooked. Some projects are just not helpful and shouldn’t be finished.
💀
Start a new one
Pick the one thats closest to the finish line
sort alphabetically. do the first one.
When I was in startups, there was a saying: “Done is better than perfect”. This applies doubly for personal projects. I fight this every damn day with my projects. Thank you for making this vid. 😊
I've worked for companies where this line of thought was used to justify doing craptastic work though.
As a perfectionist myself, I'm always fighting myself trying to make sure I'm not spending eons to get the last few percent. But the aforementioned companies would just put lipstick on pig shit and say "it's fine" because the customer PROBABLY wouldn't notice
My projects: Are we done or are we done.
"Done is better than perfect" Words to live by!!!
I’ve heard it in a different way, the way i’ve heard it was “Perfection is the enemy of Great. Seeking perfection will only result in failure. Perfection is failure.”
I’ve always liked the saying “perfection is the enemy of good enough.” Perfection also seems to be the enemy of me… so by the transitive property… I’m good enough 😢? I didn’t expect a therapy breakthrough today, thanks Joe!
Perfection is the enemy of finishing the damn project.
Am a systems engineer. Yes, 70% of my job is just trying to get information out of people so I can give it to other people. 20% is waving a knife at the CEO/boss/client because they keep wanting to change specs, and 10% is technical verification.
Add another 20% to V&V if they actually manage to change the project requirements, and then act surprised when there's repercussions.
Couldn't explain this better!
what's V&V? validate and verify?
Same here lol. I'm an R&D Lab manager for a major chip company and it's half me trying to get info out of people smarter than me and half me explaining to execs that we still can't break the laws of physics. Every time we try to do that, new physics appears to stop us.
Probably varies between companies, but for me being one is more like being the lead engineer whose main task is developing the highest level of requirements for the project, while also project managing at the discipline level, reviewing their work to make sure there aren't cross-discipline conflicts like violating their respective requirements (e.g. a thermal engineer designing a block of metal with no space for anything else), and doing the work the other disciplines don't have the capacity to do (e.g. system software, troubleshooting, testing, mechanical/electrical/process/compliance). There are subsystem engineers on some projects as well that work closer to the disciplines, but again depends on the project.
Cat herding 😂
Totally agree. The one thing I'd like to add is that safety is more important than finishing - if you push a product to the finish line by cutting safety, you're gonna get hurt.
Or worse, someone else gets hurt.
depends are your projects for income will you not eat of you don't finish?
if you are too hurt you cant finish the project , it is still optimising for finishing the project
@@remotepinecone If it's bad time management causing me to lose income because I don't get a project done in time, personally I'd still rather take my chances having sleep for dinner over being reckless enough to risk putting my hand in a lathe. If it's outside forces compelling me to put myself in that situation you're really just describing exploitation, which is not really the kind of situation you find many backyard from-scratch rocketry enthusiasts in.
Yeah. And I've spent most of my professional life in industries where if you sprint to the finish neglecting safety, the _public_ is gonna get hurt. But Joey B knows about that too, his hobby is public-safety-adjacent. (That's why they fly way off in the middle of the desert, in temporarily restricted airspace.)
I found the root cause for me abandoning projects. If you split what it takes to complete the project into small tasks of what needs to be done, you can sort them by how interesting/useful/joyful it is to do. When I run out of tasks that are interesting to do I just gradually lose interest it the whole project, because it becomes too much like work and not like a hobby.
Maybe you didn't start the project because you needed it finished? Maybe those interesting/useful/joyful bits were the point of the project? Once done, you were technically done with the scoped part of the project, the rest was just fluff.
@@1kreature true, I mostly start projects because I'm interested in some specific technology or game mechanic. Once it is done or clear to me I lose interest fairly quickly.
So to sum up:
- if a project is cheap but unfinished, it's a full waste of money and time, result is less than 0.
- if a project requires more money than optimal, but finishes, it's just a slightly more expensive product than expected, result is greater than 0
it actually applies to quite a lot of topics, not only engineering.
Overthinking and overoptimizing small parts often lead to feeling overwhelmed with a project, which can result in abandoning it instead of just getting it done. Learning this changed my entire perspective whenever I get stuck. It's hard to realize this on your own, so hearing it in a video can be incredibly helpful. Great video!
Also, doing the less perfect but finished thing shows you thzt you can do it, frees you from the project, and allows you to see what it would be good to improve next time. The thing on which you should have spent more time is seldom the one you felt you should more time on. Refining details in a prototype is usually a loss of time. When your project is the first of its kind you tackle, keep it small. You're more likely to finish it and learn in the process what you need to know for the big one.
Fully agreed! Once the project is completed, you can always go back and refine the dirty parts or simply take the lessons learned for the next project. This way, you won't feel overwhelmed by an unfinished project hanging over your head, since it's already done
I do this in music production 💀
this was really important for me to hear. I've been working on a pretty big software project for the last year or so, and ive been way too focused on making sure each element was done as efficiently and as bug-free as possible, and progress has been really slow. I was optimising for perfection, which is a pretty dumb thing to optimise for in retrospect. I should be optimising for progresss, and just completing it. This was a real kick in the pants for me, thank you joey-b.
Solo slogs are just that, feedback-free solo journeys through self-doubt. Know that there are goals beyond your ken that mean more to The Steakholders than you could ever imagine, if you are able to walk the stupid line. Ugh.
For a addon accessory for automatic gates that I am building I got a little too focused on making it easy to setup and ease of assembly that I have slowed my development progress. I plan to sell them eventually but I want it to be easy to assemble, which is a little difficult to do when building them in your spare time.
This is exactly what I needed to hear, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds its crazy hard to bring projects over the finish line.
Thanks for the inspiration and I am at my white board right now setting out exactly what I need to do to finish.
YES!!!
Get dat project over the (arbitrarily defined but so much less than you think) finish line! You can do it! We believe in you!
I think this is a great distillation of why minimum viable products exist: when it's the first time something is being done (by you/organization/group), it's more important to ship than to be perfect, because once you have something, you can put it out into the world for people to see/use/critique. It is an opportunity to find out "is this the right thing?" and then improve upon it.
If it's the first time; just ship the fucking product. If it's the second time... holy shit this is your chance to shine *and deliver*
Yes! Preach my dude! Absolutely loved this video. This has been a topic on my mind frequently recently. I struggled a lot with this while leading my university's Baja SAE team (as well as the small projects I did on the side). Getting paranoid about not knowing how to run a project after I graduated, I read the book "The Mechanical Design Process" by David G. Ullman. In Chapter 4 - Section 4, he has a wicked "Product Maturity S Curve" diagram where the independent axis is time, dependent axis is maturity. The various stages go like this: New Product -> Make it Work -> Make it Work Properly -> Maximize Performance -> Maximize Efficiency -> Maximize Reliability -> Minimize Cost -> Mature Product.
Treat every personal project like a new product for yourself or a new invention for the world. As per that diagram, the FIRST thing that should be done is get the damned thing to work. Whether you stick around to make it super-duper awesome and perfect is another issue, but every product should EXIST first to then get the in-depth iterative design love it needs. Like Joey said, whatever design work you're doing, the main driving requirement behind it should be to get it done.
I’m just a dude trying to be a better engineer at home and in the office, I don’t know everything. Joey already did a beautiful job communicating the point in the vid, but I just thought I’d share some of my own learnings for those who read the comments, and care.
13:50
"where did the bad man touch you?"
"In my soul. BPS cut me to the core, and laid me out for the world to see."
In the *requirements specification*
I loved this so much. I get so swamped down in the individual pieces and get discouraged that my approaches or implementation aren't good enough, but I need to FINISH THE F'ING PROJECT. Thanks for this, and Merry Christmas!
I'm so happy to hear someone else feels this way. I've always tried to sprint to a minimum viable product, and then improve features one at a time until my project comes to a "complete" state (or approaches a "complete" state).
Is there ever a complete state
@@Skywalker8510Toonot in my experience, but there is a threshold called “good enough”
Complete [hopes and dreams] vs Complete [waterfall model Requirements Specification].
It's even harder to persuade coworkers to even consider this method as a viable option.
I've learned to mark projects as MVP too, my trick is to plan out my big, huge, impossible goals as the "complete" status I know I'm never going to meet, then say "Okay, for this first phase, my MVP is this" and that's the part that actually gets done.
TLDR …. Better is the enemy of good enough. There is ALWAYS a cheaper or lighter or better performing version of ‘the thing’…..but chasing the perfect solution will KILL progress and you’ll never get closer to the finish line. Could every little bit of a big personal project be better? Sure….but chasing them all is a guaranteed way to never get across the line and ensure failure.
That is part of making a good requirements list. It shouldn't just be a list of unbounded wants. EG: 10kg lifting capacity needs to be split into an upper and lower bounds.
100% as someone who wants to hyper optimize everything. and i realize this leads to rabbit holes that never let me finish a project. As of late what ive done is when i am in the middle of a project i just tell myself -" The mantra for today is: Good enough" and as i work when i start to hyper focus on something i really try to just push through and repeat to myself "ITS good enough"
this has helped me keep moving and while yes the projects are never completed. they do acomplish the original tasks i set out to do and i can ALWAYS come back and optimize further later.
Honestly super helpful. I have fallen into the same trap with many of my projects (not even aerospace)
Nonono, I have 37 "Projects in Flight", they're not "Unfinished"!
Brilliant point. I felt called out when you said I know the type of people watching this. Yes, I have sooooo many unfinished projects, it’s crazy. Thank you for the push, good sir.
I really needed to hear this.
I have being stuck in "optimal small things" instead of the big goal, finishing my thesis
Systems engineer here for interal combustion engines. The definition of “systems engineering” varies strongly by who you ask but most of the job is communicating to the right info the the right people at the right time. Its much less engineering in the traditional sense and more of a project manager.
Totally agree with you here that “finish the project” is requirement #1. Its something lost on a lot of makers but is drilled into engineers from day 1. Engineering is a series of trade offs and at some point you have to say “good enough”. When you’re trading off x% more optimization for actually finishing your project, thats being a bad engineer. Personal projects benefit particularly from making use of the 80/20 rule and its why I like your channel(s) so much. You make a point to say “good enough” and move on to the next step. Would love to see more “Joe talks at a whiteboard videos”
I think the thermal paste nitpick comes from PC builders and isn't even about cost. The popular consensus online is that adding too much thermal paste is bad for heat transfer. When I watched the video I almost commented about it before the final time was revealed. I would have guessed that that much paste would have actually lessened the runtime of the camera. I was genuinely surprised the final time was better - and by a lot.
It's a bit of a misconception that thermal paste is an insulator in large quantities.
Thermal paste *is* a tradeoff between thermal conductivity and ease of application and ensuring contact between the two parts, but it doesn't insulate.
There's better things for heat transfer in the camera, like milling a heat block to the right heights so that each component only has a thin layer of paste, but paste is *way* better than air, and the goal is get the camera to run for long enough to launch, not run indefinitely.
Really interesting video. I'm a systems engineer at a defence company so that was a fun watch.
I think ultimately the requirements are key. Engineering IS requirements. Knowing what requirements can be sacrificed or changed is what makes a project successful. Too often I have seen badly defined requirements drive a project to failure, even if it is "completed"!!
This goes for personal projects too. You say completing is more important, but how is that requirement defined? Finished in 2 weeks? By the next video upload? Before i retire? There is a big difference between those and that defines the plan.
If cost is key, which i think it is for everyone, then actually it might be less important to complete the project and bankrupt yourself.
Cheap, fast and good. Pick two, but sometimes you can only pick one.
this is the most technical and long winded way to say "I'm aiming at finishing the project, so get off my back internet!". And I loved every second of it.
100% makes sense and it’s clear why you’re so productive.
To me, the challenge is that you can’t fire anyone in the personal project space. Only the project can be fired.
I think personal projects have to be run like volunteer roles; you have to keep the energy up more than anything else. Give people the things they need to not quit, celebrate early and often, etc. Yet another role that you have to do on your own. :P
What I like for my personal project and to keep myself accountable is deadline. Most projects I fail are happening when I am only held accountable by myself. I am taking part in a yearly tractor parade for christmas. The deadline is not going to move - it is scheduled and it will happen. I get like 80% of the work done in the 2 months leading up to the parade because I get lost in requirements and overengineering in the remaining 10 months of the year. As the deadline is moving closer and closer I start to cut and get more and more focussed on what matters.
The most valuable thing in personal projects is to have friends and peers that are interested in your results or at least are good at pretending to be. Schedule a presentation of a result at some date - the earlier the better. Feedback loops are important and nothing feels more rewarding than feedback. This does come with the anxiety of being rejected, but either that motivates you or you move on to a project that feels more rewarding.
Joe has this in the form of his RUclips channel and I imagine that it's a great source of motivation to finish something and present it, even if its a nose cone that is well protected from child support. Eventually these incremental presentations lead to the big results like a rocket launch.
Omg all of this. Do your best work... just not 5 days from deadline. You'll learn not to do that for next year but *damn*.
Arbitrary deadlines are still deadlines!
i find myself trying to get approval from friends or family halfway through a project or at the start and usually at that stage it doesn't look good, like i make a functional prototype to prove that the main idea of the project works then it dies at that stage. it's like i want someone to be as invested as me to keep working on the project. Negative comments like your wasting your time/money or just go buy that(something close to what im building but with less quality and functionality) instead of building this, drains half the enthusiasm and makes it harder to keep going. damn environment and people around you play a huge role
@VarkaTheDragon Yeah.. I keep telling myself to start early and more planned but then after a few weeks the project goes onto idle until I start the crunch.
@@Bursty55 I think when rejection becomes chronical you need to find a different peer group - maybe you have a local Maker / Hackerspace. Maybe there are discord communities around the subject you enjoy? I personally share most with (former) co-workers that I happened to have shared hobbies with and sometimes it becomes a collaboration.
Rockets are cool and all, but honestly this is why I watch your videos. The perseverance is inspiring.
I agree! My rant is that most "engineering" on RUclips is not engineering it's advanced making. Design engineering is about evaluating concepts that meet the requirements.
Absolutely agree!!! Finishing is everything! Optimize and redesign for version 2!! You will learn with every project but you will NEVER finish if you are constantly churning the design. Some changes are great but at some point you MUST draw the line and just finish and punt all the NEW design ideas for the next version.
I feel called out because I do indeed have unfinished projects. Thanks for the motivation, Joey B! This video was top tier, by the way.
Well said! I completely agree but I’ve never had words to describe this! It’s so easy for decision making to get bogged down on the smaller details and these can derail an entire project.
Perfectly clear. The "Personal Project" column also applies to "real" projects - even the Military Industrial Complex needs to complete projects occasionally.
meh, not unless there is an actual war where they need to work. there is lots of "paper products" that do not work and "peace time weapons" Where the main requirement is that it should not be able to cause harm during training and severly limits actual wartime functionality. Laser, Railgun and HPM weapons are a few examples of big budget systems with limited real applications. With government work you can always stamp your testresults as classified and move on to the next iteration :)
This video was certainly optimized on finishing it, rather than the clarity on if you want us or don't want us to finish our projects 😂 (at least in the first half of the vid) 100%agree with you though!
So at 13:00 you're trying to express that money is important just not the great filter. So a good way to think about this is in terms of personal finances. You cannot finish the project if all of your time is spent paying off the debt you accrued to work on the project. That's why staying in a budget is important, yes, but being able to float dollars and cost when necessary is also important.
Thank you for posting this video - I really needed it. I’ve been working on a passion project for the past ~2 years, and it has really been kicking my butt lately. This was really helpful for inspiring me to get going on it again.
How did I not notice that beautiful mic mount until 12 min into the video lol.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been super nervous that my SCARA robotic arm project will just fade away without me finishing it. Thankfully "keep moving forward" is getting easier as I make more engineer style salaries XD
Great video! You got your point across.
Currently I am working on a TicTacToe Robot which will just not work for whatever reason. Seeing other peoples projects on RUclips really makes it seem so easy and I feel like the stuff I do is too simple.
So what im going to do is: Finish that god damn robot and the suspension on my rc car!
Thanks for that reminder.
RUclipsrs usually only post what works and skip all the parts that didn't work. And they make it work a single time for a video 😁
@@linecraftman3907 yep. Sometimes I wonder how reliable these things are.
Procrastination, time constraints, and perfectionism probably my great filter. Awesome video Joe! The message was clear, its important to focus on the steps toward completion, instead of optimizing first. Elon Musk said something similar with the starship program. 13:40 lol
the joey b rants might be the funniest way to end the day lol
My best take on systems engineering is that they take top level requirements and decompose them into subsystem requirements (like the gain of the yagi needs to be +12dBi to meet the 10 mile range requirement) for each subsystem or component, then makes sure that the test programs are in place such that as smaller parts are put together you get closer and closer to proving that the system will work and pass it's overall tests. Goal being to catch issues early and adjust so that everything is fine in the end.
10:40 - sudden Meet The Robinsons
This is your best video so far.
I'm a retired software engineer who has designed and am building a proof-of-concept prototype of a brand new kind of 3D printer and have been working on it for over a year. So many roadblocks I've overcome, so many setbacks. Yesterday I almost had a nervous breakdown from working on one aspect of the project for three weeks with zero progress, until late at night when finally it actually worked and I can now move on to the next impossible step. My overall objective is having this as the basis for a new start-up company that manufactures and sells this new type of 3D printer. But for now I still need to Finish The Project of actually getting the prototype working.
I often watch your videos as a source of inspiration to get me back working on my project when everything seems to be going to hell.
So, a big thank you for this particular video. I'm glad you finally got around to completing it and making it available for the countless number of people doing their own personal project and who once in a while need that kick-in-the-pants to get back working on it.
Plz can you re-make this video monthly... I think I need to hear this way more!
As a guy who operates the in the software space, I think this is an important video for me. It's so easy to go down the rabbit hole of writing new libraries or reimplementing some complex algorithm for "efficiency" when in reality it would be better to take the loss on performance to ACTUALLY FINISH THE PROJECT
Joey B without glasses slaps hard.
I feel like the bps comments section needs more discussion about Superman joey vs Clark Kent joey
@bloho_design Very true.. The rocket documentary guy from Nashville vs the Silicon man of california
I admit it, I have a couple big unfinished projects where I got lost in the weeds then got distracted. Totally guilty of biting off too much at once. No, you don't need to learn pcb layout, mechanical CAD, firmware, and device drivers all in the same project. On the other hand, while the project isn't DONE, I did learn a lot, and finished several other projects as part of my procrastination.
Bro you are a twin of elon musk
Well said Joey B. I get stuck on the same things... Making something 'as good as possible' when 'good enough' is good enough...
There are a lot of know-it-all "you must do things my way" type of people on the Internet.
Using the thermal paste example, many people, on their first attempt, will do similar to what you did and go crazy overboard to get their task done. It's not the wrong way to do it, it's just figuring out what works.
After you figure out what works, then you can optimize to get down to a less expensive use of thermal paste that doesn't overly weigh down your drone, that is only marginally behind the target timeline for the overall project.
But in the case of the space shot, you do what you need to do, and don't get weighed down or worn down by what these Internet know-it-alls are bitching at you about.
I've been really enjoying your videos, and even though they aren't instructional videos, I've learned a few things from you in a fun and entertaining way.
Thanks for sharing with us the things you've been doing, and the love for your hobby.
To nuance the message a bit: not every project needs to meet your original goals, but every project needs to have a clear end.
Some projects were never going to fly. Some projects are object lessons learned the hard way. Some projects exist to prove that an approach cannot work.
Sometimes you start the project knowing that it’s strictly for education, but not always.
“Finishing” a project doesn’t always mean a launch; sometimes it means accepting that there’s nothing more to be gained by continued investment. Constantly review your requirements to see whether they’re practical within your financial, time, and skill constraints, and be as aggressive in cutting scope as you can afford to be. When there’s nothing left to be done, stop - even if it’s not finished (or functional).
And if there *is* still work to be done? Get it done.
I am a systems engineer and you’re spot on. Furthermore, even when Bolocmartin3Grummin starts a project, their early prototype phases aren’t about cost or systems design, they’re about delivering a barely functional prototype at any cost.
And yes, I also thought about starting a podcast about this..
Everything you said about personal projects is true in industry as well, especially for small companies and small production runs. Often times project decisions are optimized for the amount of engineering effort required compared to the alternative.
Then after the product launches you get people who contributed nothing to your project coming out of the woodwork to take a shit on some aspect of it. Like "I wouldn't have gone with that vendor" (the one who turned the quote around the fastest and had the part on the shelf), or "That component is over specced for what it's doing and could be cheaper/smaller" (the one with a reliable datasheet and plenty of design margin, that passed testing without requiring further analysis or other changes to the system).
The best response I know of is "those are going to be optimised in phase 2", even though phase 2 never happens 😊
Thanks for this. I've also fallen victim to not finishing because I looked up the best practices and then overcomplicate it for factors that don't really apply in my case like optimising for unit cost or for the ability for 10 other people to pick up where I left off for instance. I think in the end, optimizing for what helps me specifically get this one instance of the project done is what I need to do better.
I think the worst part about being an engineer is my biggest worry is not that the project doesn't get finished but that my section is not optimized. When I go home to do my personal projects, I no longer worry about finishing the project but optimizing. Thanks for making this video because I think it hits the root of why I don't finish my projects anymore.
I liked this a lot. I sort of live by this already, but I haven't thought of it consciously. It made me feel better about my own not-so-perfect solutions in the large projects that I've finished. Actually, I have a 1-up for you: Test early, and along the way. Spend twice the time by playing with it during the build process. Driving the frame of a car around the back yard or running the empty skeleton of a huge app project is fun, gives new inspiration to finish, and may change the requirements drastically to the point where if you had just finished the normal route, the project would have been worse, less fun, or just never finished.
Crystal clear! It took me a lot of time, disappointment and unfinished projects to really shift my mind set to this. I always try to keep in mind, "Path of least resistance first. Optimize later."
Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you Joey, I've been pushing for the same thing the last few years but you explained it really well. i always think that worst case scenario is shelving a project but that for me is normally a result of budget being cut from life but the beauty of that is its always available to be picked back up for me :)
Systems engineering is like 90% finding ways to get teams to collaborate by speaking the same language and sharing relevant information, so yea your “errbody play nice” is about right lol. But yea I hear your message Joe. One thing to remember with the big orgs is that they are generally designing for mass production or for their solution to be eventually replicated; it is just as much about building the ecosystem and support infrastructure as it is building the demo or fundamental capability. Personal projects are generally “prototypes”-it is not a bad thing to build out your tools and infrastructure when possible, but that’s not the objective and shouldn’t keep you from pushing toward the finish line. Thanks for the reminder to go finish a project😅
I love how the "shorts" are a 15 minute video as apposed to the 30-45 minute videos on the main channel 😂 I actually really found this insightful though, I constantly get into the scenario of starting up my own personal project/s that wind up getting stuffed in the cupboard because there was this one issue I couldn't tackle, which caused the whole project to fail. Thanks for the awesome content Joe!
I did also want to ask, actually, how do you (or anyone else) deal with not being able to start a project because of "analysis paralysis" or even just wanting to do so many different things that you can't pick one? I often face this predicament, which leaves me not even starting something because I fear that it is doomed to fail.
Guilty as charged!
Typically my projects are frozen at the exact point where I have a full understanding of them. When I finished the designed, did all the preliminary research, built the prototypes, practiced the methods and started the main build then comes the point I realize I am now confident I know how to finish it. When I have a clear to do list, with a full mastery of the required technologies, processes and components that is the exact point the whole thing grinds to a stop for a lengthy and undetermined length of time and I start thinking about a new idea...
me2
As a manufacturing engineer/CNC programmer, I completely understood your rant and your whiteboard analysis is spot on. The company I work for, we will burn through thousands and thousands of dollars on R&D to get the RF data desired, I know there have been a few occasions that I lost count on how many revisions I had to program a machined component for…I think my record is 7. Optimizing the manufacturing process comes after proof of concept.
Follow-through is important on a personal and professional level. I know it’s fun to be sarcastic and say, “Why finish a project, when you can start 3 more.” There are only a few things that I obsess over…please chew with your mouth closed Mr. Neanderthal. Why yes, I do clean my ears every day, thank you for asking, and finishing any project I start.
I think the important message you’re trying to convey is at times it is difficult to remain motivated on a long-term project. Stepping back for a moment can lead into stepping back for a day, or a week, or even months to years, then it’s just sad pile.
I enjoy your builds and how you present them.
Dwane
This was clear. You’re a good teacher and I’m motivated now. I’m going to finish my website during break.
As a programmer we have something similar: *"premature optimization"* (spending excessive time optimizing code too early in the development process) versus *"shipping"* (releasing a functional product to users, prioritizing getting a working version out quickly rather than focusing on minute performance details).
This video is the reason I won't be finishing my current project. Out of Spite. You did this Joey B Rants.
"Good enough" is perfect for a V1.0. You can then proceed with as many revisions as you see fit.
Also keep in mind most personal projects will not and are never intended to be 1.0, they are prototypes intended to prove something, or just be a one off to do something. Think v0.1. Everything starts as an alpha.
Joe,
Well said! After over 60 years of projects from huge multi million dollar machine tools to building my own personal vehicle "getting to the point where you are actually done with the project and having it work" is the most difficult part. Pragmatism , persistence bull headedness and a strong internal personal need to make it to the end are what I use to get projects done.
Rex
This makes perfect sense. I’ve been doing systems engineering for a while and the only suggestion I’d like to make is all of your scenarios actually come down to time as the great filter. Can you get enough budget in time to fund the whole project or is it worth while to budget an MVP or even a POC instead? Scenario 2 is just, can I obtain all required personnel in time to complete the project? 3 is just how much time you can sink into it before another project will take over as primary.
All projects (or life in general) will get solved in the end. It may not be the outcome you were looking for. Just remember that deadlines are a pain, but they can also reduce risk. The shorter timeframe you can get things done helps you reduce the variance that time will bring. Doesn’t matter if it’s a required software upgrade that may break functionality or winning the lottery… your environment (and life) will change over time.
This is the most gracious, encouraging, and diplomatic way I've ever seen anyone say "shut up and come back when you make your own videos" lol
Wow JB, I can't tell you how salient and timely that was. I was just perusing a notebook for this year and discovering that almost everything has been a "false start".
What I really needed was to damn the perfect solution, and embrace the good enough to FINISH.
Joey B! Joey B.
Hey. It's alright.
You're built different.
I needed to hear this as I'm in the middle of a bunch of upgrades to my house and a million things are stopping me from finishing. But I'm determined to focus on the insulation until it's done. Well, and painting the bedroom...
Thank you for this!
good point.getting something done/working is the main challenge, and there are so many rabit-holes and "improvements" that can distract and prevent completing something. It's better to get something working, then revisit and improve, than never get anything finished.
As a ME student, I definitely needed to hear this. I've had several personal projects, Mechanical Claws, Stirling Engines, etc. that I would go down rabbit holes trying to find the perfect solution for a specific problem and I'd end up rushing to get the project done last minute because I spent so long on that one specific thing. The one thing would be perfect and then everything else was rushed and last minute. I wish one of my professors would've told us this.
I have about %50 of a telescope in a box. I let perfection get in the way of good enough and now I still have no telescope. I needed this video.
In personal projects, the cost / time / quality equation is a personal one. For a functional project like your rockets, the floor on quality is a functional threshold "does it work?" Beyond that, the cost / time trade off will be a function of affordability vs desire to move onto the next project - modified by a desire to inhouse stuff to gain knowledge (which I suspect is the main purpose of the project). This is a pretty commercial approach as ultimately time is money.
I can think of other RUclipsrs who max out quality, minimise cost, but are lavish with their time. Its obviously not a viable commercial approach, but it is valid in a hobbyist context, procided that you have the patience and focus.
Me? Good enough depends on how long I expect to live with the project. Your projects are inherently disposable so (provided they work) quality compromises will be regret free.
Excellent video BTW
Got me right in the gut! As a Project Manager in real life, this makes complete sense, and I struggle to get my personal project across the finish line. I have restarted this motor test stand like 14 million times...
This really resonated with me. I had not put all of these pieces together in my head despite knowing them. Thank you for this!
I've done Systems Engineering and Applications Engineering at Analog Devices, your understanding checks out, It was a lot of having everyone play nice and making sure a stage's outputs are compatible with the next stage's inputs, my systems apps role was combining multiple ADI technologies / business units into one larger system to build a larger scale demos so this may differ to individual business units systems apps.
All in all though, it's definitely the most fun, you get to deal with lots of different types of engineering (Software, hardware, mechanical, pneumatics) and talk to all of the individual groups, you're not down in the weeds worrying about the chip design, it's more of you actually using the chips that someone else as designed.
I'm sort of a mentor at my company and I love this. I'm adding this to my list of platitudes alongside "perfect is the enemy of done" and "good enough is good enough"
Two years into a "Hmm I wonder if this would work" This resonates heavily - I am finally almost done and so so happy for some of my questionable decisions that saved effort on my end (Tom scott's art of the bodge is also really good at communicating this message)
I have a 3D printed flintlock Nerf gun, all the parts printed, the stock and body in wood PLA. I need to do coloring, weathering and generally post production stuff... It's been sitting in my closet disassembled in a box for a year now.
I have a proxmox server for personal self-hosting stuff, I wanted to network my printer through it, sitting for 6 months.
I wanted to make a nice 3D printed case for my desk electronics (USB and audio passthrough for mouse, keyboard and headphones and switch between my main PC and my Steamdeck dock). My fancy switchable USB 3 hub is sitting disassembled in my toolbox.
I wanted to make a VTOL drone/RC airplane, stuck at phase 1, I have a giant foamboard slow flier that flew only once and got stuck in a tree as a result. Done a lot of theorycrafting after that but it's been sitting in my shed, unfinshed...
Don't be me, learn how to finish your projects. Give yourself a scope, perfect is the enemy of finished... KISS, all the usual stuff, it's dumb, but it works.
I'm learning.
When upgrading my 2017 Tevo Tarantula to 2024 standards I wanted to go big, build some big Voron Core XY monstrosity, started to plan towards that, but then I realized that I was doing it again, only this time with a critical piece of equipment for all my other projects. I can't afford right now to remain without it, so I got to work reducing the scope, first I thought a Switchwire conversion, then reduced it even more. Today my Tarantula has a magnetic PEI bed, a eddy probe for auto-leveling, a Hemera XS Revo direct extruder, a PI4 with Klipper, a 7-inch touch display and a bunch of macros to turn on and off the PSU and Raspberry in a smart way. Is a bedslinger with a single Z rod the best design going into 2025? Probably not, but I finished the project, it works, it's reliable, and I cut 50 to 80% of my maintainance/downtime by removing manual bed leveling alone.
Keep your project scopes in check. I love this channel because I can see you rant to yourself when building supersonic rockets in the same way I do when designing a monitor stand/drawer/electronic box for my desk.
This is very accurate... it's very hard to finish personal projects. Exactly what I needed to get me to pick my project back up!
Great video! It's so true that everyone is a critic until they try to accomplish anything of significance.
BTW, My brother is a perfectionist inventor and his problem includes throwing out a project after lots of effort. Sometimes, he throws out perfectly usable things simply because it is not "perfect" enough.
I work in engineering the sales channel for engineers. Our data shows that the biggest risk to sales is not losing to our competition. It's not that we have the wrong features, or too expensive, or bad support. It's... ... the project getting cancelled. So even engineers in the corporate world struggle with not finishing.
I love this bro , I feels so good to know that there are people out there who share same battles.
Yes! 100% this. Zack Freedman also has some rants about this in some of his videos 3 or 4 years ago, and you nailed another take on the completionist mindset you need to adopt.
I am an engineer that has aspired to do cool home projects like all my college friends and all the amazing content I see online. So of course my house is littered with unfinished projects that I have ADHD bounced away from. Went with the CGP Grey theme year concept instead of new year's resolutions, and I am wrapping up 2024 as the "Year of Completion" where I just circled back to a bunch of home (and professional) projects and just focused on finishing or at least advancing them instead of starting something new. I of course broke the rule a bit as I found new things I needed to learn, but always in the scope of a current project.
And it was amazing, to the point where I am just going to repeat it in 2025 (because I still have that many unfinished projects...) and keep rolling. A bunch of home servers up and running, a playable game in Godot that did well in a Game Jam, finished building a 3d printer with an Octoprint upgrade, and finished writing a few programs both for home and for work. Next year will be finishing up learning the basics of Blender for 3D printing, grabbing a Jetson Nano for AI server tests, using ESP32s for whole home temperature monitoring, and then just finishing some DIY home renovations.
Learning and the journey are both really awesome, but even better is having a finished project to use, show off to friends, or add to a portfolio. Your concept of "is the work I am doing really lending itself to finishing the project or should I find an alternative?" is going to be bouncing around my head for the next 12 months. Great video.
As a steering committee GM this year - we launched 3 projects/products this year, 2 of which are still in development. I COMPLETELY understand this, and needed to see this to make sure that those other two projects are dragged across the finish line in 2025. THANK YOU!
*glances at project #1 and project #2 taking dust on the shelf while working on project #3*
I think it's really important to state that it's also perfectly fine to not finish projects if the goal of the project was to learn something new whilst making a thing. I came to terms with the fact that I most often don't finish projects I start, but I learn a ton during the personal project and that was way more important anyway.
I now actively structure projects to maximise the learning, I'm currently learning RF electronics in my spare time and have no intention of building my own SDR. I will probably during the project make my own FPGA board and maybe even my own basic analog frontend,. I'll be able to pick up some useful RF/high speed PCB design techniques that I'll be able to use in my job, and probably earn more pay for doing so. The journey is often just as important as the destination.
I don't normally comment, but as a person who works as a systems engineer who also has personal projects. This is spot on. Completely different mindset. Thank you for the reminder
I am going to remember and reference this video for the rest of my life.
As someone who is constantly faced with analysis paralysis, and trying to get things done in a perfect, efficient, optimized way, I needed to hear this.
Just. Do. The. Thing.
Dude, this and your last video are fantastic, informative, and hilarious. I think a lot of people, myself included would love you to do more stuff like this, project rants, project postmortems, etc.
It's rare to find a video that recontextualises a bunch of stuff and makes me think in greater depth about decisions that i am going to make in the next few days and hereafter, thank you!
You are absolutely right, I have to admit to starting several projects and when I hit a wall, starting another one, ending up not finishing anything or at least not being able to cope with resuming the project, trying to figure out what I was trying to do, ending up doing the same thing twice.
Love how you laid that out... And I also needed to hear this message
Thank you, Sir!