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Here's What's Preventing You From Finishing Projects

Zack Freedman
Explainers
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2021–2023 score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

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

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

“the rubric he uses is sound for programmer-y stuff too” (HN, 2022)

1 strong recommendations · 2 recommendations · Explainers

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@carb Jun 2023 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Finish Your Projects
I love this article and the premise. Further similar reading/watching in some of my favorite Zack Freedman videos! - "Here's What's Preventing You From Finishing Projects": [this video] - "How to Finish Your Weekend Projects in One Weekend": [link] "Finishing" more projects (even if that means changing the scope and announcing it "finished") has been amazing for my internal willingness to start new projects or tell friends about them. I have much less anxiety that I'll leave another half-finished project sitting around with lost motivation.
Favorite video on finishing projects and scoping.
@jld Sep 2021 Recommends
on HN thread A Tour of Grant Imahara’s Shop [video]
I found this video by Zach Freedman about finishing projects to be enlightening, especially the idea that "deciding to not finish a project" is a way to finish a project. [this video]
Enlightening idea that deciding not to finish is a way to finish.
@rhizome Apr 2022 Recommends
on HN thread The Joy of Small Projects
I came across this video a while back and though I'm not a wearables hardware guy, the rubric he uses is sound for programmer-y stuff too. [this video]
Project-finishing rubric applies beyond hardware to programming.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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