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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?

#361

Post by joepour »

I write a blog (https://nichesaas.co) about ideas for SaaS Products. The reason I started the blog is because so many developers I know struggle to come up with _good_ ideas and stick with them.

Some things that have helped me and my friends in the past:

* Set yourself achievable goals or milestones so you feel like you are making progress

* Accountability is also a great way to stick with something. Tell your colleague you'll send them a link so they can check it out and then commit to putting it up.

* Choose something you're interested in.

Often the hardest part is starting. One trick I used in the past was put a syntax error in my code. I would also leave a comment there with a small task just to get into it.

    e.g // implement GetUser()
That way when I sat down there was a small task to complete to get my program running and before I knew it, I'd been hacking away for a couple hours.

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

#362

Post by realgabriel »

You can approach your problem from the other end. How can you best choose side projects, so that the ones you start are the ones with more chances to get to a satisfying conclusion.

I wrote about it this week on my blog: https://filipesilva.me/blog/how-to-choose-your-next-side-pro...

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

#364

Post by markus_zhang »

imtringued wrote: post #347
markus_zhang wrote: post #234

I have the exactly same situation and I also made a half ass engine for a 2d rpg with a map editor. I don't know what's happening, but whenever I'm pushed to do something, either by my parents or my boss or anything urgent (say I have an interview in a week), I'm suoer focused and can get tremendous amount of work done in a short period of time. However, whenever I set up a target for myself, out of curiosity or inte…

This probably has something to do with human nature. People want to be useful to others and feel like they are a necessary part of society. This is a pretty common argument against UBI. A lot of people actually want to work at their current job.

Yeah I totally agree. I need to be useful to other people to feel happy and maybe I should be OK with that...

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

#365

Post by LeonenTheDK »

virtualritz wrote: post #258

A friend of mine said to do a successful software product you need three kinds of developers. Skip one and you will likely fail. 1. the kamikaze 2. the soldier 3. the sniper Kamikazes start the project. They have a broad vision of how the result will look (total victory, ofc) and they do not pay attention to the mountain at the horizon or the road missing a bridge over a canyon a few hundred clicks ahead. They just s…

I really like that three kinds of developers take. I've never thought about it in that light before but it seems to ring true in my (albeit limited) experience. And I'm definitely a kamikaze as well.

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

#367

Post by RobKohr »

wcarss wrote: post #228
zulban wrote: post #86

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…

My answer takes from the Feynman approach to problem solving: have several projects laying around that you could easily pick back up to work on a little bit. The progress may not be constant, but it builds over time. This is a variation on the parent post's suggestion of picking a project you can finish in three days. I find that task can itself be hard, and is work that gets in the way of the fun work. In the past I…

I do a similar thing where I keep a list of things I'd like to do in a list in a markdown file. I put subtasks on them, check those off, and eventually, when the product is done, it gets checked as done. This gives a great sense of accomplishment.

Choosing what to do is a challenge for me, so I created a task chooser for when you have trouble deciding what to do next: https://github.com/RobKohr/weighted-task-chooser

And you can assign weights to the different things. I usually run it a couple times until it tells me something I feel like doing.

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

#368

Post by kirso »

Glench wrote: post #30

Since I haven’t seen this in the comments so far, I’ll suggest that you begin to reflect on what’s truly meaningful to you. It sounds like you’re able to have a lot of ideas that aren’t particularly meaningful, which are probably ideas you got from the values of your cultural environment. So try reflecting on the following prompts: what kinds of experiences do I want to help people have, that would be truly satisfyin…

Agreed, another one on this topic is here: https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation-last...

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

#369

Post by tziki »

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…

Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for this comment. After reading it I started thinking about what I want from my side projects and realized I need to, among other things, to switch the focus from "what will happen when I finish this" to "what will I learn along the way" and to provoke my curiousity. I've been much more focused the past few days, hopefully it sticks. Thanks!
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