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Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#81

Post by partisan »

dinkleberg wrote: post #57
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #34

I’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…

That struggle is real. I've got a ridiculous amount of half-finished MVPs that I simply got bored of. It often makes me feel like an absolute failure, especially when I've told others about something I'm working on. When they ask "Hey, how is that project X you were working on 3 months ago going?" I'll have to think about it because it was probably 3 projects ago. But I think you're spot on. From each of these projec…

> in my day job people are often blown away by how I seem to know a lot about everything

This has made my meandering journey worthwhile as well. I don't have many completed projects under my belt, but I have gathered quite a bit of design and coding techniques, different languages, technologies, etc.

The one completed project (completed in a programming sense, but not a business sense), was one that was done just quick and dirty with no patterns, no architecting of any kind. I resolved to not learn anything in the process (besides understanding the dataset I was parsing for human consumption). In this way, I was able to actually "finish" something. That said, I did learn about deploying on digital ocean, about the importance of having a repeatable deployment process, etc, so it was actually a good learning experience in the end.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#82

Post by nurettin »

larzang wrote: post #12

I find side projects useless. At work I solve real problems for real people, often big problems. Some toy project doesn't feel the least bit meaningful, and any idea I have for something that isn't just a toy is something 100 other people have had as well. So I help with their implementation instead. Instead of building useless tech demos or starting primitive games I'll never finish, I look up the projects I do actu…

Eight years ago I was really bored at work (they just asked for a couple of SQL queries a day) so I made a poor man's automated trading system for government bonds. The basic idea was to camp for new bonds and look for new opportunities as soon as they presented themselves. I had also done some rudimentary backtesting to prove some simple strategies for buying and selling. I made no money off of this, it was just for fun. During development I learned how to acquire, store and process financial data in a live streaming way as well as how banks handle things, what the fees and taxes are, etc. Also helped me learn web automation, making and deploying my own services to my own servers, etc.

A year ago I started working on hedge fund software and all this experience was a huge help. So if you are busy at work making tools, great. But the benefit of side project stuff is pretty situational.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#83

Post by shostack »

tablethnuser wrote: post #55

I keep a log for each project and write down the problem I'm trying to solve followed by the idea I think solves it. If I hit a roadblock, I write that down as the new problem. Now I have to solve that before I can pop the stack and get back to the original problem. On and on and on. I might be building a CI/CD pipeline for a simple web extension cuz I've realized that manual deploys of it are boring and it's keeping…

Have you considered productizing some of these devops tools?

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#84

Post by inigoesdr »

onion2k wrote: post #24

Focus on solving a problem. Find something you actually care about and need to make instead of something that you think sounds cool or that you think might make money. Let those things happen organically. If you actually solve a problem people will tell you that it's cool, and they might pay you for the solution.

> Find something you actually care about and need to make This is my problem. It's hard to find something that I care about enough to spend time working on it. When I start on something that I do care about, I often find something that already exists that does what I wanted to make.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#85

Post by TehShrike »

For me the solution was to remove motivation from the equation.

I had to tell myself "this is your job now, you have a part-time job that starts after supper." And then show up for work every day (or every other day).

As long as you keep showing up for work, the work eventually gets done.

I started thinking this way in late 2013 and shipped the 1.0 of my first successful side project about 6 months later.

People who don't ship will tell you that side projects shouldn't feel like work, but you can ignore them. Shipping feels fantastic.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#86

Post by zulban »

I've finished loads of hobby projects, despite full time jobs, and I've been told that I'm a bit of an expert on this. I see there's lots of comments already so I'll keep it short.

1) If you can't focus on a project longer than two days, then pick a project you can finish in three days. Honestly evaluate how big such a project can be. I also see this as students learn to code. They learn the basics then think they're going to dive into a 2000 hour project. Instead, you need to ask yourself "what's the biggest project of this type I've ever finished" then add 50% to that. Like an athlete, you need to build up the endurance for your self-motivation to survive longer and longer projects. The payoffs are bigger but your human brain needs to trust that a payoff exists based on past experience.

2) I prefer not to talk about my future dreams for a project. What happens is I get enjoyment out of talking about what I "will" do, but without actually doing it. Then if I ever finish the work, I get less enjoyment because I already talked about it. In this way I'd be stealing enjoyment from my future self! An exception is advice.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#87

Post by gwbas1c »

(Apologies for being glib, and apologies for not being the exact answer to your question.)

Don't date, don't marry, don't have kids.

I approached my relationship, and later my family, with the same zeal that I approached side projects. As a result, I have very little time for side projects.

What does make a successful side project for me, is approaching it with the goal of learning something new, not finishing it.

Every other year or so I get really into something, but I've only finished one thing that had a very short-term result, It was a simple experiment where I wrote up results instead of trying to have a tool, framework, or product.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#89

Post by corecoder »

LeonB wrote: post #20

Have you considered the possibility that you may have ADHD-inattentive-type? There are online tests based on DSM criteria that can show you if it’s worth looking deeper into, such as this one: https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/adhd-quiz/

I do score quite high (total 44, inattentive scale 19, hyperactivity/impulsivity scale 25), yet I'm not convinced: at work I almost always manage to get things done well and in time, and I'm generally considered accomplished by my peers and managers, though maybe strange and over the top.

Re: Ask HN: How can I pick a side project and stick with it?

#90

Post by mschaef »

The first thing I'd suggest you do is understand why you want to do a side project at all. Unless you have a specific goal you want to achieve and you actually value that goal, you'll have a hard time convincing yourself to do the work you need to do to make it happen.

You also shouldn't fool yourself about the amount of time and effort it takes to achieve anything real. Developers tend to underestimate the work involved in achieving a result. For commercial projects that sort of estimation problem turns into cost overruns and missed deadlines. For side projects (without formal schedules) it turns into demoralization when the result you want doesn't meet the timeline of your dreams. That solitaire game may seem like an easy thing to do, but for every complexity you see there's a dozen you don't, and you'll have do the work to solve them all to produce something of value. So make sure it's something you actually care about.

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