How to Do Personal Projects
Over the course of this school year, I've been tackling a handful of small projects. It's important to me to establish a framework for doing projects for myself - whether that's coding, writing, learning - when it's not for a grade or a paycheck. If I get this right, I ensure that I can continue to make progress on my passions when adult life rolls around in September. I really want to get it right.
With that in mind, here's what I've learned. Here's my framework for personal projects.
- Involve other people when you can. It means accountability, it means people to discuss the work with. A book club is better than self-studying.
- Set Quests, Not Goals
- If there's something you want to do more of, set a quest to do more of it, and lower the activation energy threshold of that particular activity
- 10 minutes a day is better than an hour per week. Keep it fresh on your mind, and don't let a busy afternoon mean you go two weeks without engaging with the materials. 10 minutes a day means even if you get busy, you still put in 50 mins of work that week. Infinitely better than nothing. (This extends to: an hour a week is better than a four hour session once a month.) You can always do more than you set for yourself for a day - but do that amount everyday.
- Don't feel guilty! This is for you. If you miss it, get right back on the horse the next day.
- When stopping work for the day, make it very clear what you need to do next. It's essential to know exactly where to pick up the following day. In the same vein, stop when you have juice left, when you're itching to do more, when you've got a sentence left in the paragraph or one bug left in the code and you know how to fix it. This way, when you sit down the following day, you get an instant win and can keep the juices flowing.
- If you don't know what to do next, just do a bit.
- Try to only have one project at a time, as you are judged on the projects you finish, not the ones you start. That being said, if you don't want to carry a project to where you thought you would, do the minimum necessary for it to be "finished." Adjust your expectations so you can finish the project. You don't want to put off other projects because you haven't finished the one that you have no interest in continuing work on. If you are halfway through a book and have learned what you need to learn, don't finish the book because that's what it seems like you're supposed to do. You'll have no interest in reading the rest of the book and it will eat you. Same goes for projects.
- You need to have a final product which you share with other people. If you learned about Russian history, discuss it with your friend who knows about Russian history, or your friend who knows nothing about it, and explain it to them. It gets it right in your brain. If the project is learning something, you should write about it (can be the guide you wish you had when you started) or talk about it. Some strength coach, I think Pavel Tsatsouline (no idea in hell how to spell his last name), said train hard, rest well, and compete often. This is because competition set for a given date (or, in the case of projects, having to produce a final product that you share with other people, or take a test, or perform, etc) makes you rise to the occasion, accomplishing things you didn't think you were capable of.