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Poll: How many side projects do you have and how often do you work on them?

4 points by ryanwaggoner ↗ HN
Like many on HN, I'm afflicted with an abundance of interests and ideas, which often manifest themselves in the form of side projects. Too many side projects, which often end up languishing unfinished. I've been looking for ways to make more progress on these projects, including dropping some to focus on others, and I'd like to get an idea of whether other people deal with the same issues. Comments with more details and info on your projects are of course appreciated.

To be clear, I'm talking about projects that you don't feel are complete, but also aren't ready to abandon.

5 comments

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marssaxman
Some time in August I made a count and realized that I had twelve active side-projects. No wonder I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. I had a hard time just cancelling any of them, so instead I decided to keep going and let the list shrink as I finished things by refusing to take on anything new for a while. Now I am down to three active projects (a piece of software, a series of clothing designs, and an electronic device). This covers a broad enough range of activities that I have something to do no matter what kind of mood I'm in.
bradleyjoyce
so I have 2 that I work on daily (http://tweetsaver.com and http://floxee.com) that are not my primary business but I have probably about 10 that I rarely work on. Of those 10 there are probably 2 that I think could be big deals at some point in the future and the other 8 I probably should abandon :-)
kmort
2 projects taking up most of my spare time and hoping to launch by February. Another long running one which I'm happy to to look at every couple of months or so. It takes a while to get back into the context but very enjoyable.

And (checks Google Docs) about 12 unstarted ideas in various levels of detail that I would love to have the time to look at. Alas I'm spreading myself too thin as it is.

Edit: Project details: a) A sports tipping calculator, b) A curated directory / recommendation engine for learning new tech, c) A game that I'm coding for fun.

colanderman
Clarification: by "X projects that I work on daily", do you mean working on 1 project each day, or X projects each day?
johndbritton
I've got one main side project that I work on every day in one form or another.

In addition I have four or five active projects that I work on at least once a month.

I also start and finish small hacks a few times a month.