I've been indie hacking for a year and some change now, and like many, I noticed that I've struggled with dreaded shiny object syndrome.

At first it feels like all of my early indie-hacking project efforts have been cope - I would treat each project strictly as "learning projects" to get my technical chops up, and not actively try to sell anything.

But a year into this, I'm realizing that you learn relevant skills even faster when you are actually trying to create a successful product or business. Speed and mass accrue.

One analogy that I've been playing around with is that action on your ideas creates momentum. Kinetic energy.

If you recall from your physics courses, you might remember the formula: momentum = mass * velocity (or p = mv).

In other words, if you throw your weight into an idea or problem with enough speed and direction, you will gain greater momentum.

While this is good to know, the truth is that there are natural dissipative forces of time and attention that are always eating at your momentum. If you are not actively adding new momentum to your projects, or if you are getting distracted by newer endeavors, momentum declines.

So sometimes we run out of time, or we dissipate our attention onto other things.

This is not necessarily good or bad, but something to be an aware of as we decide what to work on.

When something is in motion already, it can be good to continue to place bets (mass) in that general direction if you find it's direction that you like going.

If you don't like where you're going, then hey, maybe it's time to look for new pivots or paths.

But just know that all of your learnings from actions are accumulating and adding mass to your overall corpus of experiences, regardless of the direction.

So if you keep placing all of your bets in a general direction, it will be harder for you to lose momentum unless you just actively choose to stop or change ways.

Right now, while it doesn't feel like I've had a major success launching my own software projects, it almost feels inevitable that success of some form is on its way if I continue to stack momentum from skills and experiences.

So let your actions compound into mass, and keep slightly readjusting the crosshairs along the way towards an area or direction that you'd like to compound in.

Protect your momentum by continuing to learn, and then place your bets accordingly.