Have a Side Project
Photo by Hunter Haley on Unsplash
Craigslist started as a casual email group Craig Newmark, a Bay Area transplant created to share news, local events, and items for sale with friends. Khan Academy emerged from Sal Khan privately tutoring his cousin over the web — his virtual lessons caught on. Similar stories abound — many successful products, from Instagram to Slack, began as humble side projects.
I think everyone should have a side project, but not for the reasons you may think. While some become fantastic successes, most do not. Let’s not fall prey to survivorship bias — only noticing the runaway hits. Instead, I am advocating side projects as a way to stay connected to your craft.
If you work inside a company, perhaps without noticing, you lead a constrained creative life. Organizations need structure to facilitate collaboration and alignment. In that effort, tools are standardized and processes codified. Further, the focus of a company is narrowly circumscribed. An idea that might thrive in one culture won’t fly in another. Both the path and the destination are chosen for you, boxing in not only how you work, but what you think about.
Enter side projects. A side project is something that fascinates you enough to explore it. An idea that calls to you, compelling you to dive in and tinker, to see what makes it tick, and importantly to do something valuable. The result need not be useful to anyone but you, but having an idea of where you’re headed is critical to maintaining motivation.
There is a big difference between taking a Python tutorial because you want to ‘learn to code’ and using python to figure out where to buy a home in the Bay Area. The latter is more akin to what I view as a good candidate side project.
In a side project, you make the rules. It’s liberating — only one voice matters — yours. At the same time, with this expanded freedom comes a broader workload. Now you’re the designer, coder, tester, system admin, project manager, CEO and every role in between. No job is too small if it must get done.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” — Stan Lee
To make progress, you’ll have to pick up the tool and be reasonably proficient with it. Through this process, your appreciation for others skill will grow immensely. You’ll realize that other people’s jobs are not only important but damn hard! It’s healthy to remember things like this.
Beyond appreciation, a side project will give you a way to flex your creative process. When you get to make all the decisions, what parts of the process will you cut? What is essential and what can be discarded? As a team of one, you return to the essence of your craft, seeing both sides of the puzzle — the factory floor and the shop window.
You’ll fight harder against waste because you’re both the producer and consumer of any artifacts. You will also learn, likely though having to go back and fix something, that some planning is indeed necessary, good, and ultimately saves time, but no amount of planning eliminates later adjustments.
“I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different.” — Yves Chouinard, Patagonia Founder
Your side project may become the next billion-dollar startup, but it likely won’t, and that’s ok. Pursue what fascinates you. In the process, you’ll learn something valuable about yourself and your craft. And when you get bored with one project, you can set it aside and move on. This should be fun after all. So have fun and if you have the time, have a side project.
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