Cut

This is the part I explain worst and the one that most decides how it all ends.

Making something small and making the least that answers your question look like the same thing. They are not, and the difference gets paid in months.

A small but complete product — sign-up, settings, all of it — you can no longer throw away, because it cost too much. You cannot keep it either, because it is not good enough. You end up maintaining something you do not really want. That is worse than having started late, and more hours will not fix it.

The only thing that has worked for me is writing down, before I start, what result would make me stop. Before, it is a decision. After, it is a negotiation you will win against yourself, every time, because by then you are fond of it.

The other thing that helps is the date. Treat it as the one limit that does not listen to reason. It is not pressure: it is the most honest cutting tool I know.

In the end this is a lot like keeping a garden. A gardener does not make anything grow; they set the conditions and remove what competes. Same here. You cannot force anybody to want what you made, you can only keep clearing what stands in the way. And what you remove almost never comes back. That is what ends up telling you what it was worth.