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Posted by prakhar897 1/27/2026

Doing the thing is doing the thing(www.softwaredesign.ing)
139 points | 50 commentspage 2
dondraper36 1/27/2026|
As a person with ADHD, I feel personally attacked.
zahlman 1/27/2026||
I guess you understand this and are making a joke, but that "attack" would appear to be intentional (and motivating).

I find that I don't have major issues doing a thing once I get started on it. The main problem is choosing from among many things that I could reasonably consider "the thing", and then feeling confident enough in that choice to start.

drivers99 1/27/2026|||
What about doing the thing intently for a week and then realizing later you haven't touched the project in 6 months?
dylan604 1/27/2026|||
This sounds not too dissimilar to the release the POC to prod mentality.

There are times where you obviously need to do the thing to understand the thing to see the process of doing the thing. This allows for breaking the process down into better steps. Just writing code to do things you think is doing thing but prove not to do the thing when actually doing the thing is common.

zahlman 1/27/2026||
I'm talking about having completely different, unstarted, overall projects in mind.
llbbdd 1/27/2026|||
Same. I'm tempted to print this post out and hang it for inspiration. But I guess that would also not be doing the thing.
code_biologist 1/27/2026||
I have bad ADHD and printed the strangestloop.io blog post out and put it on the wall by my work desk in Oct 2023 according to the printout timestamp. I still haven't done the thing in some meaningful areas, and the print has honestly kind of been dispiriting. I'm going to take this post as the prompt to take it down.
llbbdd 1/27/2026|||
I'm going to consider this with the same weight I would if my future grey-bearded self popped out of a portal to say it, thank you. I've had a sticky note on my monitor for a few years that just says "SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP SHIP"; it might be time for that to go before it becomes much more depressing.
dijksterhuis 1/27/2026|||
sometimes i find that being okay with not doing the thing is exactly the thing i need to do to be okay with getting around to doing the thing
myst 1/27/2026||
Coming up with excuses is not doing the thing.
poolnoodle 1/27/2026||
Am I crazy or have I read this or a very similar post before?
OpenDrapery 1/27/2026||
Is telling AI to do thing, doing the thing?
olliepro 1/27/2026|
The more I use AI to do the thing, the more it feels like I didn't do the thing.
robofanatic 1/27/2026||
Ironically people who fall in not doing the thing category of this article are valued more than those who do the thing.
sghiassy 1/27/2026||
Is planning, like deciding how to position your troops in battle, doing the thing?
munificent 1/27/2026|
Planning is doing the planning thing, but it is not doing the battle thing.
TuringTest 1/27/2026|||
But both are doing the winning thing, which is more valuable than just the battle thing. Unless you do it just for fun and don't mind the result.
munificent 1/27/2026||
I don't know anything about planning and battle.

But as a metaphor for other creative pursuits, my experience is that most of the time when people are "planning" or working on other things that they like to believe will help them do the thing... they are really just avoiding doing the thing.

People spend years doing "world-building" and writing character backgrounds and never write the damn book. Aspiring musicians spend thousands collecting instruments and never make a song.

As you say, if it's just for fun, that's all fine. But if the satisfaction you want comes from the result of the thing, you have to do the thing.

dakiol 1/27/2026|||
And running the marathon is just running the marathon? I disagree. Big part of running the marathon is in the preparation. Weeks after weeks of training and not skipping a single session. The marathon itself is the tip of the iceberg; important but not the whole "thing".
recursive 1/27/2026|||
There are some things that you just can't do without preparation. But never mistake the preparation for doing the thing. You can be "getting in shape for a marathon" forever without ever running a marathon.
olliepro 1/27/2026|||
It depends on your thing. If the marathon was just the motivation, your thing is running... if the marathon was the bucketlist item, it is the thing.
neko_ranger 1/27/2026||
"Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder but nobody wants to lift no heavy ass weights!"
CuriouslyC 1/27/2026|
"Ain't nuttin but a peanut"
PrettiGoodDead 1/27/2026|
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