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The blissful Zen of a good side project

(joshcollinsworth.com)
567 points ingve | 2 comments | 04 Apr 25 20:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.408s | source
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candiddevmike ◴[04 Apr 25 21:19 UTC] No.43587682[source]▶
I feel this in my bones. Side projects are so cathartic and saved my sanity at $DAYJOB. I don't care that I can't implement things the way I want, or how everything is spaghetti, or how much tech debt has piled up, my side projects is a blissful world that I invented. It gives me the "I am Jack's crap codebase" fight club zen at work.
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1. bashmelek ◴[04 Apr 25 21:37 UTC] No.43587856[source]▶
Yeah. There is something about carving out the image of your own mind and getting absorbed deep inside it. I will write from scratch much more than I need if it strikes me, break whatever rule I want, give names that only make sense to me. It is a sanctuary
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2. Shorn ◴[05 Apr 25 02:29 UTC] No.43590093[source]▶
You can tell my engagement level with my job by the commit frequency on my side-project.

If I'm deeply engaged at work, I don't have many spare cycles out of hours and there's little happening - library updates and small fiddling.

Otherwise - it's full steam ahead on projects that I somehow magically find the time for.

I don't work on my stuff during work hours - disengagement from work results in more energy and motivation to do stuff out of hours.

Weirdly, I think this actually benefits those boring workplaces too. If I'm scratching the itch with what I'm doing on my side-project - it means I'm less likely to invent interesting new ways to over-complicate things at work.