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Lessons from a never-ending personal project

siddhesh.substack.com

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Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#61

Post by rudasn »

Vetoquinol wrote: post #51
rudasn wrote: post #18

End of last year I had some time and started building a side project I've been thinking about for quite some time. I bought the domain and promised to myself that this time it will be different, this time I will publish. Months go by, with lots of refactoring, "core" features and no progress at all. Some weeks were most productive than others though and just last month there was something usable. So instead of doing…

Hey, sounds similar to my situation. :) Just putting my software out there, on my barely visited site, lifted a weight of my shoulders. It's just one thing that I have put off of my mental shelve. I even know there are some basic features missing, for what I think is needed in a product. However, it was good enough for its intended purpose. It's probably not even used by anyone else, but if it was and one would not b…

It's https://wirehub.org

Yeah, theres a typo right on the homepage, I know, I'll get to it.. :)

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#62

Post by mikhailfranco »

Highly recommend The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.

He has at least two beautiful chapters on this subject:

Completion p191

The Experimenter and the Finisher p205

The last sentence of Completion:

  We can't wait to finish, 
  because there's another idea calling 
  that lights us up.
The endnote for Completion:

  Is it time for the next project 
  because the clock or the calendar
  says it's time,
  or because the work itself 
  says it's time?
P.S. All his chapters are beautiful.

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#63

Post by rivo »

adrium wrote: post #30

Nice article with interesting thoughts and I appreciate the quotes - but I respectfully disagree that 'finishing a personal project you’re doing just for yourself is impossible' I think it's really important to first reflect on the purpose when doing something: is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is i…

Completely agree on not setting a deadline, it will likely lead to disappointment as we tend to set unrealistic deadlines anyway, even more so for personal projects which rely on having time off of work and other responsibilities. I would even skip the "define a goal and a scope" part. Just go for it and see where it will take you, it might go into a totally different direction, which is fine.

I started recording songs for a Christmas album in 2007 and just published them this month. I thought I would never release them. And every time Christmas was over, I didn't feel like working on them anymore. So I only had about a month per year to occasionally work on them. There were years when I didn't touch them.

So after 16 years, I could see the home stretch and I decided to make it to the finish line. (I recorded the final music video today, actually.) If you had pushed me to name a deadline back in 2007, I would've said 2008.

I have a whole bunch of "projects" lying around, some of them are just ideas at this point. They will get finished eventually. Or not. No pressure.

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#64

Post by rthkljlkrj »

adrium wrote: post #50
rthkljlkrj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is it to promote yourself. Is it because you feel the need to keep yourself busy, but too lazy to plan what you're trying to achieve.

Not sure what you mean with your comment, but 'keeping yourself busy' should not be confused with procrastinate or simply passing time. Procrastination, passing time, doing nothing, and feeling bored should also deserve time on its own. However, I would not call them projects. Anyway, there may be a feeling of burning on, or burning out, when private projects start to feel like a todo list...

> keeping yourself busy' should not be confused with procrastinate or simply passing time

Could you clarify - what's the difference?

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#65

Post by gazsp »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #39

> Finishing anything is a miracle in and of itself. A huge shoutout to anyone who’s ever done anything to completion at all. He is writing about art (creative writing), as opposed to commercial product. Art is fairly inward-focused, and its goals can be a lot “fuzzier” than product. I was an artist, in my Yute. At one time, I wanted to actually make a living from it. But artists finish, all the time. Some, treat thei…

> Since working on my own stuff, I’ve had to drastically reduce the scale of my work, and practice self-discipline that, I suspect, many folks here would consider extreme.

As a person with never-ending, over-ambitious side projects, I'd be interested in hearing more about this!

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#66

Post by musicale »

adrium wrote: post #30

Nice article with interesting thoughts and I appreciate the quotes - but I respectfully disagree that 'finishing a personal project you’re doing just for yourself is impossible' I think it's really important to first reflect on the purpose when doing something: is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is i…

I feel like I've read too many blogs that were started by an author who wanted to develop writing skills, self-promote, etc. - but didn't seem to have many interesting things to say, and those few things were padded by large quantities of unnecessary text.

I greatly prefer the occasional blogger who focuses on quality over quantity.

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#67

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

gazsp wrote: post #65
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #39

> Finishing anything is a miracle in and of itself. A huge shoutout to anyone who’s ever done anything to completion at all. He is writing about art (creative writing), as opposed to commercial product. Art is fairly inward-focused, and its goals can be a lot “fuzzier” than product. I was an artist, in my Yute. At one time, I wanted to actually make a living from it. But artists finish, all the time. Some, treat thei…

> Since working on my own stuff, I’ve had to drastically reduce the scale of my work, and practice self-discipline that, I suspect, many folks here would consider extreme. As a person with never-ending, over-ambitious side projects, I'd be interested in hearing more about this!

Well, it's a long story, but I tend to have a goal for every one of my projects; even if that goal is to provide a reusable library for other projects.

The vast majority of my projects are reusable libraries and SDKs (Swift Packages, for the most part).

I do every one of my projects as if I were delivering to a Fortune 50 corporation.

I write a bit about how I do stuff, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#68

Post by gazsp »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #67
gazsp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since working on my own stuff, I’ve had to drastically reduce the scale of my work, and practice self-discipline that, I suspect, many folks here would consider extreme. As a person with never-ending, over-ambitious side projects, I'd be interested in hearing more about this!

Well, it's a long story, but I tend to have a goal for every one of my projects; even if that goal is to provide a reusable library for other projects. The vast majority of my projects are reusable libraries and SDKs (Swift Packages, for the most part). I do every one of my projects as if I were delivering to a Fortune 50 corporation. I write a bit about how I do stuff, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/t…

Awesome, thanks!

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#69

Post by adrium »

rthkljlkrj wrote: post #64
adrium wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean with your comment, but 'keeping yourself busy' should not be confused with procrastinate or simply passing time. Procrastination, passing time, doing nothing, and feeling bored should also deserve time on its own. However, I would not call them projects. Anyway, there may be a feeling of burning on, or burning out, when private projects start to feel like a todo list...

> keeping yourself busy' should not be confused with procrastinate or simply passing time Could you clarify - what's the difference?

I meant this purpose in the sense that an activity brings joy, the purpose is pleasure.

Doing something while procrastinating may be enjoyable. But along with it often comes guilt - sooner or later. I had issues with procrastination and occasionally still do. Even though some outcomes of alternate activities may be good, projects should not have the purpose of procrastination.

Passing time is when you deliberately do not work on any project. I think projects can not have and should not have the sole purpose of passing time. If a project brings you joy, good, if not, the activity should not be called project.

Re: Lessons from a never-ending personal project

#70

Post by adrium »

rivo wrote: post #63
adrium wrote: post #30

Nice article with interesting thoughts and I appreciate the quotes - but I respectfully disagree that 'finishing a personal project you’re doing just for yourself is impossible' I think it's really important to first reflect on the purpose when doing something: is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is i…

Completely agree on not setting a deadline, it will likely lead to disappointment as we tend to set unrealistic deadlines anyway, even more so for personal projects which rely on having time off of work and other responsibilities. I would even skip the "define a goal and a scope" part. Just go for it and see where it will take you, it might go into a totally different direction, which is fine. I started recording son…

Good input and compliments for your project!

Sometimes, deadline for private projects are necessary and for some projects they could be completely irrelevant. Also, it is a matter of personal choice and character to set one.

The idea part is very interesting. Basically ideas are the raw, unstructured parts of projects. There is an exploration aspect to it and to realize them may bring a lot of joy - without calling them a project just yet.

So maybe your decision to finish all those ideas, wrap them up, put them together, create the video, is the very incarnation of the project. For that you probably set some purposes and goals and maybe even a deadline.

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