The subtle peer pressure of working in public

I'm really good at starting projects. Like, really good. If starting projects were an Olympic sport I'd probably be pretty competitive. Finishing projects, though? Not so much.

The last thing I wanted to do while recovering from the holiday hangover in my house was jump back into a project I had recently gotten through the fun part on, and was now in the grueling implementation details part. As I was cleaning up the last of the wrapping paper detritus, stuffing Christmas decorations back into their storage bags, and trying to locate yet another place to stash toys so I can pretend to be an adult when folks come over, opening up my dev environment and getting my app working again was the last thing I wanted to do. It sounded much nicer to spin up a cozy crochet project and binge watch Netflix.

However, I said on the internet that I was going to release this thing, to people whose opinion I respect. So getting back into that project was exactly what I did.

Saying you are going to do something in public feels vulnerable. If I don't finish it and I let it languish in my personal backlog forever, it's not just the project that suffers. It's my own credibility. That feels much higher stakes than finishing a project I want to make sure I finish.

Working in public forces you to become a person who follows through. It's peer pressure, but unlike drugs or alcohol or CrossFit, I think it's a good peer pressure. It's pressure that's not just pushing you towards something, but pulling you towards the person you want to be.

It's not visible. No one is asking me “is it done yet?” but I still feel it.

I've gotten further on this side project than most other projects I've taken on, and that's both exciting and terrifying. Now instead of asking myself “what if I don't finish it?”, I get to ask myself some even bigger questions:

“What if I DO finish it?”

“What if no one uses it?”

“What if too many people use it?”

I'm glad I added these extra stakes to this project. I think that the next time I want to do something big, I'm going to work in public again.