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Ask HN: How can I start executing on side projects?

14 points by chainedtodesk ↗ HN
Dear wise posters on HN,

I am struggling with a situation I am sure many of you have been in. I have a comfortable full time job at a large tech company. I have dreams of entrepreneurship, but I am not yet financially stable enough to leave my job. My goals for the next year are to increase my savings and pay off my debt so that I can be free to choose my own path.

I would also like to execute more on the various side projects and ideas I have had kicking around since forever. Specifically, I have been learning iOS programming as I figure even if I do not produce a highly profitable app, it is a skill that I can monetize through contracting.

However, I find myself lacking some impetus when it comes to following through on any of these ideas. I know I need to start executing, rather than getting caught up in an idea for a week and then dropping it for something else, or worse, dropping it and spending the next week playing a videogame in my spare time. One of the reasons is that my full time job leaves me feeling tired and uncreative at the end of the day.

How have you managed to successfully execute, to completion, side projects while employed full-time? What motivated you? How did you keep going after the shine had rubbed off?

14 comments

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prenk10
Personally I tend to get up three hours earlier than the day job, work on my projects, go to work then have an earlier night. But that doesn't work for everyone. You need to do what suits you. Increasing the amount of exercise I.E. cardio can improve motivation and productivity.
chainedtodesk
Cardio? I lift weights, it makes me feel much better than cardio, even if I am the only girl in the weight room.

I don't think getting up earlier than my current 7AM would work for me. But perhaps I can make my morning time more optimal. Thank you for the suggestion.

xlorm
I have the same problem. When I first think of something I want to make I get really excited and I start coding and writing down ideas. After a few days or weeks I usually end up in the situations where I get home from work and the project doesn't seem exciting anymore.

To combat this I've been trying to fully plan projects while I'm excited. That way I have a nice list of individual tasks I need to complete and I know how each of those tasks is connected to the overall goal. When I get home from work and only have an hour or two free I can finish one of the small tasks. I end up feeling productive and like I've made progress.

imtu80
I am in same boat. I recommend to team up with a friend or coworker.
anujkk
I have just one advice - start small. Choose side projects that can be done over a weekend, that involves learning new things and that can help you earn some money even if small amount. Few successful small projects will give you the required confidence and interest to do bigger side projects that may take several weekends. e.g., useful plugins and themes or browser extensions or may be even a small web/mobile app.
joeld42
I have completed three apps under similar circumstance. It's tough. It's really tough. Here's some stuff that helps me:

- The hardest part for me is getting started at night when I'm already tired and brain-drained from a full workday. Once I'm working it's ok. It takes habit. Such as, every day at 9pm or whenever you start just sit down with xcode and built clean five times without changing anything. Then you can go play games if you want (but I find I usually don't if I can get that far).

- You can't do it with just small blocks of time alone. You can do most of it, but you HAVE to have a few eight or ten or sixteen hour marathon days in there to tackle the big parts. This is especially good when you're running low on motivation. It doesn't take a lot of these marathon days but at least for me I can't finish anything without a little bit of self-imposed crunch.

- Don't start small. That's aiming low and for me that kills my motivation. Start with a impossibly big idea and then when you start to get overwhelmed cut features until you end up with something small.

- Don't tell people what you're planning. Only show them what you've done. For me, what worked was not allowing myself to tell them about the app (not even mention it) but I could demo it to people to show off what's completed.

- Work in the mornings if you can. I can't do this at the moment but I was getting up at 6 for a while and working on projects until 9 and that really helped.

- Only work on one thing at a time. If you start getting sick of it, too bad. Cut features until you can ship it. This is brutally hard to do because you're trading the potential for what it could be and what you see in your head for some crappy half-baked version. But what's hard to realize is that other people don't have that same vision of it as you do. The "half-baked" thing might be pretty cool to them. When I'm at this point I make index cards on a corkboard with the features I want and then cross them out (if I implement the feature) or remove them (if I cut it). I don't allow myself to add any cards until I've shipped an update. Ship it.

- Never rewrite your bad code (well, if it at all works). Do it right next time, live with your mistakes.

- Find others. It's really helpful to have others to talk to and share progress.

Also don't get your hopes up about making lots of money. It can happen but most apps don't make much. I'm making just enough to pay for my apple gadgets, and since it's kind of a hobby that's OK. But you're right in that it's a good skill to have and in high demand right now.

I'm procrastinating working on something like this right now. Sigh.

Good luck.

chainedtodesk
Thank you for your comments. I am not sure not telling people will work for me. External accountability has always been a big way of getting myself to do things.

Some great tips that I think will work, though. Perhaps a marathon day at the weekend to just get started on one single idea?

I'm not doing this for money, specifically. I can achieve my financial goals with my day job paycheck. However, I am terrified of not being able to pay the bills if I do leave my day job, and so working on a skill that will get me insta-employment if I need it. :-)

nnpodz
Get a partner to work on it with. Set some times, split up the responsibilities (so you both have to do less) and work on it as much as possible while you can. Your work will motivate each other.
chainedtodesk
Any advice for how to find such a partner? Even someone to check in with would help. Most of the people I know are through work, and I don't want to tout my moonlighting.
countessa
I'm in a similar situation - comfortable full time job - though I've been developing my side projects pretty well for about a year and they bring in a nice side income at this point. Basically, I follow the rule of 3 - set 3 goals per week, per month and per year. I use Sundays to plan my week - I take about 30 minutes to decide what 3 things I want to achieve in the week. Usually, given I don't get a lot of time to code in the evening, I set small goals - for example: create a custom table view cell, refactor a piece of code, sketch out an algorithm to do x. Then I check in at the end of the week to see how I'm doing.

Given family and work commitments, as well as seeing friends occasionally, careful planning is really necessary. Try out a few methods and see what works for you.

devb0x
There's lots of people stuck with this problem it seems. I was talking to my wife today about going in to work earlier, but my client comes alive only in the afternoon.

That, coupled with hectic hours has killed off my motivation. My side project has worked for a few clients and i eat my own dog food for my website, but man, i'm just tired at night.

I'd say start with the big idea, then chunk it and do it bottom up. good luck.