New Projects & Productivity
‐ Random

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on the blog. There seems to always be a point where I’d think “Oh, that would be a great topic to blog about!”, but then the moment of opportunity disappears and eventually distractions pull me away to something else. I think my hang up is focusing too much on the quality of writing instead of putting thought to paper (keyboard?).

 

Here’s the new approach I’ll take: it’s better to produce something than nothing. And this philosophy will not just apply to my blog posts but also to side projects.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of the qualities that I’d like to see in a single ideal side project.

 

It goes something like this, in no particular order:

  1. It should be a pressure-less sandbox where I can experiment with new frameworks/languages at the unfortunate cost of reduced dev velocity
  2. Emphasis on the pressure-less. With no hard deadlines, I can work on anything and most everything at my leisure.
  3. The project should be the shining example of the latest best practices that I can refer to for my other projects
  4. I should be able to freely practice development paradigms I haven’t used before like aiming for 100% test coverage or trying a new architecture
  5. Perhaps it’s a transferrable project I could build an open source community around
  6. The idea should have monetization potential in hopes of creating passive income
  7. There should be an element of flair to the project which will look good to perspective employers
  8. The project should feel fun to the point where I don’t feel like I’m doing work
  9. It should give me a feeling of transcendence by the mere creation of it (in other words, it satisfies my need for visual creativity)
  10. Yada yada yada…

 

But after being stuck in analysis paralysis, I’ve come to find that a single side project will take forever to satisfy even 50% of this wish list.

Which is why I recently figured it’ll be easier to achieve these goals by dividing and conquering. One project might emphasize points 1, 2, 4, and 7, while another is focused on 3 and 5.

Now that list is on this blog, I’ll look back and report how successful I’ve been 🙂

 

And off I go…