Title: I&#x27;m a 26 y.o. software dev working on going indie. All my life, I&#x27;ve struggled with procrastination. I find it very hard to sit down and work on a project without an external motivator, and on many nights I end up vegging out in front of the TV or aimlessly clicking around on the internet. As a result, even though I am successful on an absolute scale — CS degree from a top-10, worked at a startup and a large company, enough savings to last a few years of solo development — by my own metric of success, I am crippled by the feeling that it&#x27;s &quot;too late&quot;. Every day, I read an article by some hot-shot young dev who has a handful of fancy projects behind his belt (not to mention a great website and design sensibility) while I have exactly zero — and he&#x27;s half a decade younger than me! How will I ever be able to catch up? Experience-wise, I&#x27;m still a junior dev.<p>It&#x27;s a constant, irrepressible gnawing in my chest. Every morning, I take tally of my age. Whenever I encounter a technical article, I immediately and compulsively investigate the author&#x27;s age. If I&#x27;m behind — which I always am — I will lock myself in my room and force myself to work, even though I still end up on HN half the time. It&#x27;s exhausting and terrifying, but I also don&#x27;t want to loosen up. At my core, I am intensely ambitious. I have so many great ideas, and knowing that the main obstacle between them and me is only myself keeps me in an endless state of panic.<p>It&#x27;s been getting better. For the first time in my life, my procrastination is starting to get tamed. I&#x27;ve been working hard on my first big project, and I expect it&#x27;s going to be a great one. But I can&#x27;t help but feel that if I had started in earnest at 25, at 21, at 19 — then maybe the list of accomplishments at the end of my life will be longer. Mentally, I&#x27;ve resigned to the fact that I&#x27;ve procrastinated away a decade of valuable time, and it just endlessly haunts me.<p>Does anybody else have this problem? How do you deal with it?
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