The title is really vague, so I’ll try to clarify my intentions here:
I am an ardent supporter of FOSS. It will be greatly beneficial for my life and especially my privacy to self-host such software. Yet, I cannot find much motivation to do so.
However, when it comes to hosting software for public use, I can usually give my utmost concentration and dedication.
This is not how I want my life to be. I want to be motivated for myself as well as for the community. And if that’s not possible, I need to trick my brain into bringing me into that kind of zone for myself.
What do I do? What would you do in this situation?
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Generally laziness helps.
If you host a system, then you have to dedicate resources to maintaining it, which quickly escalates to lack of interest.
If you pay someone to host it, you get to spend your energy on things that you’re interested in.
If you can find people to pay you for things that you’re interested in, but they just want fixed, you have a business.
So, be conservative in what you host and frivolous in what you outsource.
Note that this says nothing about FOSS. since that’s about a related but different concepts.
From a FOSS perspective, be frivolous (as in, do lots) in your bug reports and patches, be conservative in which projects you own.
One of these is likely to be true for you. Maybe more than one.
- You don’t know what to do, at least some part of it.
- You know what to do, but you don’t know what will happen if you do it.
- You know what to do and you know what will happen, but you don’t want that to happen.
If any of these resonate with you, then that might give a clue about what to try next.
In addition, you can act without feeling motivated. Some people like starting with 10 minutes of effort or a single step, because sometimes doing anything is enough to sustain energy and focus. It’s a way of using inertia to work for you, rather than against you.
To clarify, I’m talking about being motivated enough to host public facing services like Invidious and SearXNG, maybe a Monero node. But I’m lacking motivation when doing things strictly for personal use like a project tracker for my personal projects, a personal media server. Basically, since I’m accountable to no one, I don’t feel the light nudge I need to get to work on something.
In terms of hosting software, sure I can read about configuration. I tend to have the overall process planned out in terms of what to expect.
The main problem is, let’s say I give an hour a day on hosting a FOSS project. I could easily give it 4 hours if I were motivated, but I’m not. Because I procrastinate and waste time. It’s only during the later hours at night when I realise I have a deadline (need to go to bed) and my mind kicks into overdrive and I accomplish whatever I can in that hour.
That’s the behaviour I’m trying to solve.
I relate to these patterns, which is why I have tried to learn about the fundamentals of motivation.
What is the relationship for you between my prior suggestion and your clarification above?
I know what to do, what should happen (in theory), and I want to do it. But I waste my time away. Is there a way out of this?
Is there also something you don’t want to happen that seems likely to happen if you try?
For example, I work with many folks who struggle to leave projects unfinished, so they resist starting for reasons they don’t quite understand.
I definitely fear projects being unfinished, and the apparent “mountain” of work that might be the new personal project I want to work on definitely intimidates me
Aha, so that’s something in the way: it might be more work than it’s worth to you. Either the uncertainty interferes with you or the certainty that it demands much more effort than it’s worth interferes with you. Does one of these hit you more than the other?
I’m certainly familiar with both feelings with regards to different projects.
So… Let me address each of those, just in case.
- Can you just do some of it and then stop and be satisfied with the part you’ve done?
- Can you start, figure out that it’s more trouble than it’s worth, then undo and go back to where you were before?
I don’t merely mean “Are you able to?” but also “How would you feel about those outcomes?”
Peace.
It used to be that I didn’t really grasp the scope of most projects, and so after research I used to dive right in. These days I’m more jaded and try to make better long-term choices in terms of software (which is ridiculously hard because you never know, example: Terraform is no longer FOSS).
The extra work is usually in optimisations or security configuration, both of which I’d like to have done but apparently I don’t feel horrible enough to actually do it.
Yes, I have done both of what you said. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule for me, but it does make me a bit miserable, that I didn’t finish what I started. Sometimes, that acts as a catalyst for me to get back into it and actually try to finish it, or leave it completely after understanding that it’s beyond me.
Thanks for the advice.
But do you even need to do these things? Or is it just for your personal enjoyment? If it’s just for your personal enjoyment then the question your asking is very different.
That’s a difficult question. This is a hobby that I’d like to be more diligent in
Be wary of equating your enjoyment of hobbies with your productivity.
Absolutely. But I want to do it, and yet I procrastinate. This has got to be a serious flaw in personality to procrastinate in doing a hobby
You cannot procrastinate something that has no deadline. Have you been diagnosed with any mental conditions like ADHD or depression? Your experience sounds similar to mine and I have ADHD.
You mentioned that you are able to pursue these tasks when they benefit a community. Maybe try to find a small group of folks with similar interests and do this together?
No ADHD AFAIK.
Well, the stuff that I procrastinate on is inherently private and likely shouldn’t be allowed access to for people outside. In doing so, I only stay accountable to myself, and we can see how well that has gone
ADHD.
Short answer: Therapy!
Long answer:
You’ve identified a problem that you want to fix (willingness to do effort for yourself versus for others) but you haven’t identified the root cause. This is basically one of the situations that therapy is best equipped to help with. It sounds like maybe a self-worth issue but I’m not a therapist so that’s about as valuable as a lace umbrella.
Not sure - I don’t feel like I undervalue myself (although I guess that’s exactly what someone in my situation would say lmao). I just don’t find motivation in doing something solely for myself, and am instead invested in things that I think the community could benefit from. An example would be wanting to run a Public Searx/Invidious instance
Yeah I hear you! But crucially its
- a problem you have within yourself, that you’ve identified you want to change
- a problem you don’t know how to change
You don’t need to have deep trauma or self-harming tendencies for therapy to be of value to you! But it does indeed sound like I’m off the mark on the self-worth thing. (That’s why I’m not a therapist).
Worst case scenario, you have a few sessions and don’t find anything to sink your teeth into and you’ve wasted a few hours Better case scenario, you find a root cause or at least a path to a better way of doing things.
But hey, I tell just about everyone to get therapy :P
Im not sure I would want to change this. Im not sure if its a type of person but im generally more motivated when it comes to others than myself and more willing to sacrifice if it only effects me. I would sorta like the world to work on this principle.
Why not both? Presumably you aren’t hosting for others what you wouldn’t host for yourself
My rule is that I only do stuff that comes from within me.
Now that doesn’t mean that I can’t search for that feeling.
I mean sure, if I am on the sofa with a warm blanket posting to Lemmy, I am gonna be anchored there.
What works for me is to work backwards. What do I want? Why? What is needed for that? Why? Just keep breaking it up.
Then I’ll do what I call circling, like an eagle. You start with the big circle and slowly shrink it until you get to the core of the matter and finally swoop down and catch your target.
For instance a large circle could be being at your pc drinking a coffee, reading something, taking some short breaks to move and look out the window. This is already closer than say doomscrolling, and in that sense a success.
Now once it feels right, you circle a bit closer. Read or watch something related to the topic you care about. And so on.
The trick is to work with the grain, instead of against the grain, of your brainy bits by balancing boredom against frustration in order to find your flow.
You can stay in any circle as long as you please and it is better to step back into a larger circle than to give up entirely.
While doing this keep visualizing what success looks like. Express this, but also your anxieties and whatever else in a freewriting note (avoid structure).
Most importantly perhaps is to remain skeptical of your desires. The world will always have more work for you to do and will happily keep you busy. And your desires aren’t necessarily your friends. Be conscious of the ones you want to commit to. The easiest way to close a task is to simply not do it.
Try hosting a guide on exactly how you did it. There’s never enough documentation, and it’s interesting to see what kind of workarounds / fixes you might find for any problems you’ll have.
This is a good idea. A public facing guide that gives me motivation to maintain it
look at yourself from the 3rd-person perspective.
treat yourself the way you would treat someone else.
I think I’m pretty dumb. A third person would be very contextual; a third person who is a guru in FOSS, or a random person from the street?
All I really want to do is to find motivation to host FOSS, both for myself and the world
