Hi!
Since yesterday, I’m trying to “design” the flow and database tables for a new feature in my app. Whenever I have to build a new feature that seems to need a lot of conditions and variables, it’s becoming quickly a mess in my head and I procrastinate and waste a lot of time 
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How do you approach this? What is your workflow for designing and creating new, complex features for your web app?
Hmm, I tend to do the database structure first or I do a prototype using a tool like penpot.app and then the database.
Great question!
I think there are two approaches…
One is to plan every little detail, then build to the plan… so think first.
The other is to come up with an idea, build a working version of it, and as you try using it then you realise what you really need it to do rather then what you thought you need it to do.
I do the latter. A bit like how Elon Musk designs rockets.
In the planning, I will often start in my head. When I find it becoming a mess, I then stop, go somewhere quiet with a paper and pencil, and just scribble different specs until a drawing and a structure make sense. I feel that point in my body.
The I go back and start to build!
I take an afternoon nap after drinking a pot of coffee. Don’t sleep but the mind works wonders! Get up, notepad and pen, scribble, screw it up, scribble again, in the bin, third time lucky! Then a little research to locate examples of what I want to do, ie if it corresponds to something already in the wild. Don’t rush the process otherwise you’ll just end up doing it over again and again, wasting hours. Hit up the Community here with your needs and ask for ideas. Then go at it!
If my app is data-driven then I start with what data I need to store and how will I store it.
I design database, then create backend and finally the frontend.
But sometimes I just do the opposite. It just depends on the mood or if I need to start with the UI as a mockup.
Unless you are working in a team and have defined tight processes you are ok trying multiple approaches until you find one that suits you. In case of doubts, and if it’s data-driven start with database.
Thanks all for the suggestions. I guess that my problem mainly is that I try to find the most “elegant” approach which makes me rethink every step, I guess it’s just procrastination. Will try to build workable first drafts and optimize all after that I guess.
We all have a little Leonardo da Vinci in us... Carrying the Mona Lisa around for twenty years, trying to create perfection. In our minds nothing is ever good enough and we feel we can always do better. I think Honda got it right in an old advert...
Hate something, change something, hate something better!
I believe it is what makes us 'developers'...