Ship a messy feature that works? Confetti. Complete one migration file? Confetti. Push code that moves things forward? Confetti. Actually deploy something users can touch? Double confetti.

My brain, apparently, is simpler than I thought. It just wants sparkles.

Week one felt wrong. I was shipping code with TODOs. Committing functions that worked but weren't elegant. My inner perfectionist was screaming.

But the confetti kept coming. And something weird happened.

I started craving it.

Not the animation itself—the feeling of forward momentum it represented. My brain had connected "progress" with "reward" in a way that years of self-discipline never achieved.

I'd catch myself about to spiral into a refactoring rabbit hole and think: "Wait, this already works. Ship it, get confetti, move forward."

The database migration that had been stalled for weeks? Done in days. Not because I worked harder, but because I stopped polishing and started shipping.

This isn't about code. It's about how brains work.

We think we're motivated by big rewards. The promotion. The launch. The perfect final product. But our brains are wired for immediate feedback. That's why social media is addictive—instant likes. That's why games work—constant micro-rewards.

Perfectionism short-circuits this. It delays all rewards until some imaginary future state of "done" that never arrives. Your brain, starved of dopamine, finds it elsewhere. Twitter. Reddit. Another coffee. Anything but the work.

But tiny, automated celebrations for imperfect progress? That's brain crack.

Writing? Celebrate words written, not perfect prose. I know someone who rigged their keyboard to play a typewriter ding every 100 words. They went from stuck to shipping blog posts weekly.

Exercise? Celebrate showing up, not perfect form. Automated calendar confetti for gym check-ins beats waiting to celebrate when you're "in shape."

Learning? Celebrate lessons completed, not mastery achieved. Progress bars and streak counters exist because they work.

Creative work? Celebrate iterations, not perfection. Every sketch, every draft, every prototype—each deserves recognition.

Perfectionism tells you this story: "I'll be happy when it's perfect."

But perfect never comes. So happiness never comes. So you never ship.

Small, automatic rewards tell a different story: "I'm happy because I'm moving forward."

And movement builds momentum. And momentum builds habits. And habits build remarkable things—imperfect, shipped, real things that actually exist in the world.

Pick your biggest stuck project. The one you keep "almost finishing."

Find your version of confetti. Could be actual confetti. Could be a sound. Could be a victory dance. Whatever gives you that little hit of "yes!"

Automate it to trigger on progress, not perfection. Every small step forward. Every imperfect iteration. Every messy first draft.

Give it one week.

The confetti didn't make me a better developer. It made me someone who actually ships.

Sometimes the best productivity hack isn't about discipline. It's about making your brain want to do the thing you've been avoiding.

Even if that means desktop confetti.

Find me shipping imperfect things daily:

Check out @raycast—they accidentally solved perfectionism (and if you want to try it out, you can save 10% on a Pro subscription with my referral link).

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