What is your temporal persistence? Like if you have some project you are putting off while trying to mull over a solution, how long do you generally keep that in mind until you find a solution or it fades from memory, replaced by something more productive. I’m not really talking about consciously shifting focus. I’m talking about the point when a project gets shelved unintentionally; you still hope to get back to it but usually do not. What is your temporal persistence like? Perhaps you complete every project, meaning you are less abstracted and that is fine too.
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Sometimes years.
The oldest project I haven’t actually given up on entirely has been rattling around in my head for somewhere around ~15 years, I think, with occasional bursts of progress.
(I also have an anxiety disorder… 🙃️)
I’m not sure what the average length would be though.
I finished a project last summer that languished for 7-years. It’s a fancy box with lights and switches that powers a blacklight to illuminate whatever you set on top. The kids were not impressed. :(
Congrats on finishing!
Years.
I don’t usually even start on something unless it’s been swimming in the back burner soup with the other ideas for at least a year. Then when I go to work on it it’s invariably mixed in with other ideas that have been back there waiting for the right moment.
I guess my real answer is that I never give up on an idea. Maybe a decade, realistically? But even then I feel like the spirit of the idea lives on in the soup.
I can’t go in the outdoor closet by my kitchen without seeing 100 projects I’ve been meaning to get to. I’m creative and have shitloads of junk I’ve found or bought at thrift stores. Some date back several years.
I’m in almost the exact same position. Next year is the start of my project to start making videos out of my collection of gadgets and the idea is to organize them as I go through them.
How long? Long enough to make a note on it. Then, on slow days, I’ll look through the notes and usually go … nuh-uh … not enough (… time … money … usefulness …)
Until I write them down.
I once spent about four months trying to understand a single diagram in a math textbook.
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I encountered this quotation afterward, which reassured me that feeling dead in the water for months at a time happens to the very very best of us.
I can illustrate the … approach with the … image of a nut to be opened. The first analogy that came to my mind is of immersing the nut in some softening liquid, and why not simply water? From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better, and otherwise you let time pass. The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months — when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado!
C. McLarty, The Rising Sea: Grothendieck on simplicity and generality, in J. J. Gray and K.H. Parshall eds., Episodes in the History of Modern Algebra (1800–1950), Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2007.
Okay that is a lot. What kind of diagram was it?
A diagram showing the domains of single-length vs infinite-length words in a particular type of iterated functional system.
If it’s a custom DIY project, potentially years.
Some of my best projects basically came from parts and materials out of my junk bins. And sometimes it’ll take years before I randomly stumble into the exact right parts and materials I was looking for.
That’s exactly ME! Sometimes I’ll find some trash in the woods and think, “That’s what I needed for that project!”
We hauled in driftwood from the river last week, working on a terrarium tonight.
Me: Lets reorganize my (digital) files and make sure everything is backed up
[unknown] months later
Me: Oh shit, I better make sure I back up my files
🙃
Are you asking about one’s ability to retain projects in one’s memory or how long one keeps a project before deciding it’s not gonna happen?
Answer to one is I write it all down because I’ll forget. Answer two months.
No intended context really. I’m thinking both in terms of projects and my neighbor that took a big chance with my life and triggered some PTSD stuff
Until I forget about it I guess… That reminds me I needed to fix up my PlayStation and I put it off because of reasons.
What kind of a thought are we talking here?
If you mean that face my boss was making when I told her about my weekend, and what it could possibly mean, like, what if she really disapproved of something, but what? Maybe that I told her that I went out of state? Maybe she thinks I just went all the way out there to get weed. I think you can get that there now. What if she thinks I’m a stoner and suspects I’m coming to work high every day?
Then about 6mo- 25 years.
If you mean making my mortgage payment, then, about 45 seconds and gone forever.
I’ve definitely dreamed or seated on project ideas off and on for years. I also like to think about pared down versions that might serve as a proof of concept that would be easier to execute. Sometimes I actually even build a thing.
Not sure what you mean. If you want to stay focused on the task, then try to do so. If you want to let it slide, then do that and get back to it whenever. It’s possible that you’ll completely forget or it’s possible that you will get back to it. Back in college there was a certain book (fiction) that I wanted to read. I finally got around to it 20+ years later. I’m glad that I read it and the delay wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t like it was bugging me for all those years. Something eventually reminded me of it and I followed up.
