Why unfinished projects?

[RoGeorge]

Some projects will stay forever in the 'bucket list', some will be started but stuck on the 'to be finished' phase, some will be silently dropped or forgotten, some projects will fail, and some will be finished.

What are the root causes for not finishing a started project? (if you are the type who use to always finish your projects, please explain how to do that)

[Messtechniker]

Basic problem solved - loss of further interest because of no specific application
for the solution at the moment. Solution may come handy sometimes several
years (or even decades!) later. For this, proper documentation and labelling
of the protoboard is the key.

[Rerouter]

For me, there is a few reasons,

A number of my projects are "because I can", Building something interesting, to learn all the quirks and tricks involved with such a task, e.g. I've never done BGA, someone posted a Kicad project archive asking how to escape
 a 12x12 grid one, well I spent 30 minutes and broke it out on 3 layers, respecting grounds,

So now I know how to escape BGA's respect high edge rate return currents, and the fun of 4/4 spacing

Many others get sections ripped out and reused, I've built a few diagnostic / testers over the years, and they are full of reusable, refined and idiotproof chunks,

Others get skipped because I learned enough to discover i was fighting an X / Y problem, or lacked the correct search terms to find a cheap and well made solution.

And a few are simply access to IP preservation, working with some really handy piece of electronics, So I sit down and replicate it in case they later decide to stop selling them, This has become more important recently as a number of small one man band operations have stopped due to old age, (Some of the best RF wizardry I knew of was pumped out by a 97 year old who still hand assembled things up until march when he fell and was whisked away to a home)

[Mr. Scram]

Basic problem solved - loss of further interest because of no specific application
for the solution at the moment. Solution may come handy sometimes several
years (or even decades!) later. For this, proper documentation and labelling
of the protoboard is the key.

I've noticed that's a huge factor. As soon as I've figured out how to do it and am confident enough it'll work and I can pull it off, my interest level drops significantly. I like a challenge, but I don't really like menial tasks. When it's my job I take pride in also doing the latter properly, but when it's my own project that isn't really a factor.

[jm_araujo]

For me the root cause for not finishing is getting distracted by the next project (which should be an option!).
It's mostly because of the ninety-ninety rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule . I find the second 90% pretty boring and get distracted by the next big shiny project easily.

[ebastler]

For me the root cause for not finishing is getting distracted by the next project (which should be an option!).

+1. You could argue that it is a special case of "loss of interest" -- something else becomes more interesting, at least for the time being. I have pushed projects on the back burner for two years, and then revisited (and actually completed) them later.

[Conrad Hoffman]

Wow, all of the above! Some I can't even explain. For example, I bought parts to build the Poor Man's Spectrum analyzer at the Dayton hamfest decades ago. I built the boards, temp wired them together and everything worked perfectly. I did the chassis work, the paint and mounted everything. Everything is there, ten-turn pots, BNCs, a meter and power supply. All I have to do is the fairly simple chassis wiring to connect everything. It's been on the shelf for 20 years or so, can't tell you why. I did finish my Cordell THD analyzer long ago, but that one took me several years. Just collecting the parts was half the battle, mostly the complicated rotary switches.

[hans]

First of all? What's "finished"? Is that an usable board, or one that is completely tidied up and that you could take to a job interview to show you can do product design?
For me it's the latter. And it usually gets stuck on firmware and polishing.

I build a board, bring up the hardware, write an alpha firmware and fix all botches made.
Then I quickly lose interest. I'm often interested in making concepts work, I think this is where I get most satisfaction out of it.

When I have a real usage for a project, the boards often stay in a patched up state. Although I'm fully aware that most stable hardware designs have to go through 2+ revisions, I don't see the point in spending money twice on extra PCBs, components just so I can avoid a few fixes. For most of the designs I'm doing these won't add functionality or improve performance.

It's hobby after all. Although I know it's a job for many people, but I see the art of "design for manufacture" as mostly busy work.

[TomS_]

Ive been going through this a bit myself this year.

Late last year I started working on a project, and was fully invested in all of my spare time. I made significant progress on the software side, and designed Rev A of a lot of the hardware. Earlier this year (where "its almost done" is how I would describe that project) a new interest caught my attention and now I am more or less fully invested in that instead, with the other project tantalisingly close to "ready for testing".

I still want to complete my other project though, I suspect maybe this second project is a bit of a distraction - its one of those curiosities that you develop, and just have to investigate and get out of your system before you return to your other project.

Prior to this I did some other projects which I saw through from start to finish serially.

There are other projects I would like to do, but they arent nearly as interesting as my "current two".

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

For me there is often also a "no longer need it". I would start a project because I want the result of something (eg, powersupply) but then before it is finished get something that works and beats my own thing in every way. Exampleso of this were my power supply (suddenly found myself owning 5 supplies), milliohm meter (got a 6.5 digit meter, does the trick also), voltage source (got a good deal on a working source), the list goes on.

Also, once the interest to do something wears of, I kinda forget about it. I will remember it at times I can't work on it, but when I do hve time I start thinking and wanting to work on other things.

[Mr. Scram]

For me there is often also a "no longer need it". I would start a project because I want the result of something (eg, powersupply) but then before it is finished get something that works and beats my own thing in every way. Exampleso of this were my power supply (suddenly found myself owning 5 supplies), milliohm meter (got a 6.5 digit meter, does the trick also), voltage source (got a good deal on a working source), the list goes on.

Also, once the interest to do something wears of, I kinda forget about it. I will remember it at times I can't work on it, but when I do hve time I start thinking and wanting to work on other things.

I've stopped trying to build things that I can buy. I need to undervalue my time ridiculously to make that an interesting proposition. Of course, doing a project for the sake of it is still viable or when something is simply unaffordable.

[SiliconWizard]

Basic problem solved - loss of further interest because of no specific application
for the solution at the moment.

I'd second that. This is a very common cause of abandoned projects for engineers. You have a problem at hand that you are challenged to (or challenge yourself to) solve, and this is what gets you interested. Once the problem is solved, you just move on. You have built a "brick" of knowledge or technology that you can reuse later on.

Another common cause is procrastination. It's very pervasive. There's a lot of causes for this, one being loss of interest, so kinda back to the first point.

Yet another cause is the "going from prototype to product" syndrom. You have prototyped something that works. Now to make it a finished project, you need all the finishing touches. You then realize that after all your efforts and what seemed hard work to get to the working prototype, there's even more work ahead to finish it. You didn't expect that, and the finishing part doesn't look very attractive compared to the initial phase, so you give up.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

Yet another cause is the "going from prototype to product" syndrom. You have prototyped something that works. Now to make it a finished project, you need all the finishing touches. You then realize that after all your efforts and what seemed hard work to get to the working prototype, there's even more work ahead to finish it. You didn't expect that, and the finishing part doesn't look very attractive compared to the initial phase, so you give up.

I think this is related to the fact that some (I think, don't know how common this is) don't really care about the end goal but care about the joy of designing a thing, and then mainly the fun of the electronics. Once you get past that point of working prototype, most of the hard electronics design work will be done and it's now, as you said, a matter of finishing things off. That is just not as fun, hence we abandon the project.

[DaJMasta]

Usually it's another project pushing it to the side, or a combination of some sort of time sink outside of projects that makes me sort of get out of the habit of doing it and then a new one crops up.  Not really lost interest as much as it is getting excited by the next thing.

I also enjoy the hardware part much more than any software part, so I've got a few projects that are basically at that point.



That said, I do come back to them, so they sort of get shelved for a while and then I cycle back.  Many of my repair projects follow the same general trend, too.

[kony]

Add burnouts to the poll. Best part being one does not ever recover fully, despite the reconvalescence taking easily over year. 

[nuno]

Add burnouts to the poll. Best part being one does not ever recover fully, despite the reconvalescence taking easily over year. 

+1!

And maybe turn the poll into multiple choice?

[b_force]

For hobby projects it's always a combination of all.

[JS]

Hard to get components here, now might be getting better and easier to import but still a pain waiting 2 months and paying a lot extra for a component.

Missing components is my main reason I guess.

JS

[Mr.B]

Most of my unfinished hobby projects are due to my lack of ability with enclosures.
My latest unfinished project is a nixie clock controlled by an ESP8266, fetching time from an NTP server, automatically correcting for NZDST.
Did the design.
Layup the PCB.
Blank PCBs fabricated in China.
Assemble PCBs.
Write test code.
Tested - all OK.
Write final code.
Working clock - A thing of beauty.
Project stops...

I really want a nice wooden enclosure, but I don't have the tools to make a professional looking one.
The project will sit in its box until I finally resign myself to the fact that it will never have a wooden case and to just get on with a 3D printed case.

This sort of thing happens to about 33% of my projects.
Projects that do get finished are usually because I have deliberately designed them to fit a COTS enclosure.
Then they turn out looking a bit industrial...

[thermistor-guy]

Some projects will stay forever in the 'bucket list', some will be started but stuck on the 'to be finished' phase, some will be silently dropped or forgotten, some projects will fail, and some will be finished.

What are the root causes for not finishing a started project? (if you are the type who use to always finish your projects, please explain how to do that)

Failing to stay focussed and to persevere.

My next few projects are research projects, on sensors and calibration. If my current project works out, it should generate three papers (say, IEEE standard) immediately, and a more complicated fourth paper after those. IF it works. My intuition outpaces my math. It's taken me a few years to teach myself the math I needed, so I could prove the main theoretical result that will underpin the first paper. Until recently it was just a guess. Now it's looking more solid, but it's still not a sure thing. My next major subtask is to get the experimental data to verify the theory.

There's math to learn, theorems to prove, test setups to build, experimental technique to validate, software to write. Software for  test instruments, for data logging, for data extraction and analysis, for optimization, for simulations. All of this is in progress. There is a mass of detail to take care of, and it's easy to feel that the goal is just too far away, when actually it's not.

I've learned to be more persistent. Going to the gym has helped me with that. Eat, sleep, train, repeat - with discipline and insight, and regardless of mood, easing back where necessary to avoid injury. The results come, not immediately, but they do come. This is what success feels like.

Projects = brain gym.

[@rt]

There aren’t any. I’m only allowed to work on two at a time, so if I want to do something new, one of the current ones have to be complete.

[Mr. Scram]

There aren’t any. I’m only allowed to work on two at a time, so if I want to do something new, one of the current ones have to be complete.

Who is allowing this?

[@rt]

Myself and it’s been that way for more than a decade.

[Mr. Scram]

Myself and it’s been that way for more than a decade.

What happens when you're stuck with two projects you don't care about any more?

[IDEngineer]

I think this is related to the fact that some (I think, don't know how common this is) don't really care about the end goal but care about the joy of designing a thing, and then mainly the fun of the electronics. Once you get past that point of working prototype, most of the hard electronics design work will be done and it's now, as you said, a matter of finishing things off. That is just not as fun, hence we abandon the project.

I thought a lot about this "unfinished project" problem a while back and came to roughly this same conclusion, but I generalized it to "It's just not creative enough".

One of the things I've realized about myself is that creativity is a huge part of the attraction. Boring, repetitive, mundane tasks are almost physically painful. I can feel my IQ dropping in real time. So I'm attracted to problems that require creativity to solve, and once the creative part is done my interest wanes. That doesn't mean I drop the project... indeed, my work requires me to do everything from the initial concept to the production fixtures and tooling and documentation. But once the technical challenges of the product itself are resolved, I'm actually attracted more to things like designing an efficient calibration fixture for production of the product than finishing the actual product itself!

The good news is that I recognized this in myself a long time ago, and developed the discipline to overcome the "next shiny object" syndrome. That's not to say I don't have unfinished projects, though. For all but the physically largest projects I get a new banker's box, mark it with the name of the project, and keep all of the associated components inside. This prevents components getting mixed between projects, and makes it easy to resume a project since everything is in one place. It also gives me a visual indication of how many unfinished projects I have... there's a sizeable stack of banker's boxes in view as I type this.