I would classify myself as an extrovert (ENFJ more specifically) and building products as an extrovert can sometimes be tasking. Sitting in a dark room alone pecking away at the keyboard is absolutely frightening to me. Because of this I always burn out on building stuff, have a bunch of half baked projects, and am never satisfied with what I've accomplished. But recently I've discovered how beneficial it is for me to build products in the open. For me this means tweeting about progress, logging tasks on Makerlog, and live streaming on my Twitch.

Tweeting my progress

Getting instant feedback about what I'm working on is awesome for an extrovert like me. I always feel the need to have my ideas validated even if they suck. So having a stream of awesome people on Twitter to share with is amazing. Being able to talk different ideas through with people in a thread and gather new ideas from those people is amazing. Take this interaction with @dinkydani21 for example. Other people are building great things and sharing their progress on Twitter as well which does two things: inspires me and kicks me in the ass to get something done if I'm being lazy.

Logging tasks

Makerlog is amazing, props to Sergio for creating such a good community! I use this daily to keep track of what I've done and what I need to do. Most task tracking apps just don't do it for me because there is no interaction with the outside world. Makerlog makes gives other people the opportunity to give you "praise" and comment on the tasks that you completed. It's like having your own cheer section! Makerlog also has a streak feature that has really kicked me into gear to get at least one thing done a day to keep my streak alive. I've always heard that a body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest, so this does a good job of keeping me in motion. Being able to look back on past tasks is awesome too, you can see how much progress you made which is always motivating if you're feeling down.

Streaming

I used to stream myself coding a long time ago, but have just recently gotten back into it. It's awesome to be able to interact with the chat in real time. Sometimes it's almost even like pair programming. You're able to get tips from the viewers and also teach them from time to time. It's nice to have someone interacting with me while I'm building something, which makes it feel like I'm not back in that dark room pecking away at my keyboard so much.

In Conclusion...

Building out in the open has totally changed me as a maker. I'm actually getting stuff done and being held accountable for the work that I do. If you'd like to join me on my journey of building you can follow me on twitter @kpmdev to stay updated on everything that I have going on!