I have this and it's caused a great deal of stress in my personal life _and_ work life. Basically I get excited by the idea of a new thing or project, but within a week or less I am totally and completed bored by it. There are very few times I've managed to keep continuously working on the same thing for a long time
Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
61–70 of 372 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#62Yes!!! My way out was to not focus on the product, but focus on my personal benefit. I asked myself "what do I want to learn?" not "what do I want to build?".
Recently, I completed a Shopify plugin (https://apps.shopify.com/simple-pages). I wanted to learn more about the platform. I researched it a bit and found a problem that I thought I could solve. Each step along the way (setup, build, approval) was painful. But each time I focused on my personal benefit. For example, when the app got rejected a few times, I convinced myself that I was learning about what Shopify was looking for in plugin vendors. This kept me going until I saw it through to the end.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#63Seems you're picking up project idea from your interest. Would it be better if you pick up a project because you deeply feel the pain how it is currently without your solution?
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#64I have the same problem.. too many ideas to develop... Shiny new technologies to learn.
What I've done is:
1. Just don't do programming side projects. Currently my side project is making a couple of bookshelves for my house (Google pipe furniture). They are easy to make, require very little tools, my wife loves them... And miss importantly I have something to show for my efforts. So basically get a hobby not related to programming, where you have to make things, preferentially in service of others.
2. My other side project is a small prototype to create a startup on that. We have been working on that for 6 months (the longest I've worked on anything) the key, for me, has been have a pair programmer. A junior dev that I can mentor, while we work. I even pay him. I advertised it like an internship. So I'm very committed to that project: pair programming for accountability. Mentoring for social connection. Paying for financial commitment.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#65The way I deal with this issue is by writing the idea down in as much detail as possible.
I find that the process of writing gets the itch out of my brain and also forces me to go through a planning phase before I decide to commit my time to an implementation.
For example, if I wanted to make a game I'd write down the main idea behind it, what game mechanics I would implement, how I would structure the progression through the game, how it relates to other games, any technical aspects that are relevant, I'd sketch out any visual details like a map, game ui, etc.
I have a long list of semi-developed ideas I stored as notes in Google Keep that has accumulated over the years - business ideas, games, tools, etc. I have written prototypes for some, which was fun.
I find that most ideas need to simmer for a while. I'll often go back to add more details to an idea, because I thought of something new. Those are usually my best ideas, but also the ones that require the most time.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#66I’m just like you. I stumbled upon a book called Refuse to Choose and it’s about a personality type (that is definitely not ADHD) that happens to want to do a lot of things (sometimes in parallel or in sequence). It was very comforting to know others struggle with this and this book helps you to be ok with it. I wouldn’t say it “cured” me but I think about it differently now and use it more to my advantage. Worth a r…
> "If you are no longer interested in a project you started, maybe you already got what you came for"
Very much this - I have very few finished side projects, but in hindsight I can track the course from even my first personal project in school to where I am today.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#67Whatever brings some joy, it's the signal.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#68Same here. I am in very similar spot like you, I start a new game/engine project every day and switch language every few days.
The best tip I can give you is to participate in competitions. Like "make a game in 7 days". It gives you a set timeframe and forces you to push the product into a usable/presentable state. Better to have few working unfinished games than many unfinished projects that aren't even playable.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#69My way of overcomming this situation is to use the MVP process for my side projects: your side project needs to be as simple, as featureless as it possibly can, so it can be shipped to your friends quickly, before you get tired of it.
It has worked really well for me: simple projects are more likely to be finished, and when you show them to other people, their feedback/enthousiasm fuel your energy to add more features and spend more time on the project.
Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?
#70Since so many people are sharing their story, I will share mine. 5-6 years ago, I started working on Typesense (https://github.com/typesense/typesense), an open source, typo tolerant search engine designed for speed and developer productivity.
In the past 5 years, my journey has brought me through my wedding, the birth of my first child, losing a loved family member, a job switch and so on. Nevertheless, it has been really great seeing the project gain traction and motivate me to keep working on it through the highs and lows. Everybody differs, but I think for me the following 2 things kept me going:
a) Pick a project that you are sufficiently motived.
b) Don't set deadlines but have a plan to work on the project everyday. One some days it will be hours, on other days it will be just thinking about a problem at the back of your mind for a few minutes, but the idea is to keeping at it.
Now nearly 5 years later, I'm still not done yet but I'm amazed how much I've achieved by just showing up every single day.