It’s sometimes funny how an innocuous blog post about one thing can spark off a series of interesting comments about a related topic. Burt’s post about being busy did just that with some interesting comments about peoples’ motivation.

This got me thinking about what makes me come home from a day working in front of a computer…and spend more hours working in front of a computer!

My motivation is three fold:

  1. Money - the extra income I earn from the online world enables me to live a more comfortable lifestyle with a few extra luxuries - to indulge in my hobbies (snowboarding & mountain biking) and to buy more gadgets & clothes than I otherwise would be able to.
  2. Knowledge - I enjoy learning new things and there’s always something new to learn whether it be PHP, SQL or CSS etc. 
  3. Challenge - similar to knowledge, I enjoy figuring out solutions to problems and get satisfaction from getting a site to do exactly what I want it to do.
  4. Ego (wasn’t sure what to call this one!) - I get a bit of a kick from creating a site, publishing it on the web and then seeing how popular it becomes. It’s also a sort of culmination of gaining the knowledge and overcoming the challenge which ultimately leading to making some money.

However, sometimes even these aren’t enough, and I do just come home, sit in front of the TV and not even turn the computer on (or just go to the pub!). Remember, for me, this is extra income - I’m not relying on it to pay the bills or to buy my food which I suspect gives you that extra kick if you are full-time self-employed.

That’s just me though - it’s always interesting to hear why other people are doing it and what keeps them going - what are your motivators?