Ask HN: How did you adjust your “side-projects” personality to adult life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How did you adjust your “side-projects” personality to adult life?

15 pointsmclightning6 comments

Hi,

I have been a programmer/maker since I was 13. I have always built projects I come up with myself.

I have been in actual enterprise world for the past 7 years, with last 4 years being more intense.

Coincidentally, number of side-projects I built was reduced in these last 4 years.

Only now, I start to realize... that I am on the other side of situation which adults would ask me "How do you find time for all these?"

I buy electronics components or setup boilerplate projects, only to find them half-done...

This is really frustrating. It gives me a foggy mind at work. It makes me less efficient/focused at work.

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Set yourself a rule that you won't start any new projects until the old ones are done, and stick to it.

People of my generation spent way too much time watching TV before the internet, and surfing the web ever since... time that could be used to build all sorts of cool things.

The other massive time sink is owning a home in the suburbs. Becoming a lawn person (one who talks about their lawn and shrubs, etc.) is almost a cult.

Join a makerspace if you want to find supportive help.

Agree. If you can outsource toil (cleaning, house work, babysitting, mowing the lawn) you’ll have more time in “adult life”.

Generally agree. But what's the point of having a kid if they're mostly going to be raised by someone else (teachers and sitters)?

> For who of you, willing to build a tower, doth not first, having sat down, count the expense, whether he have the things for completing? lest that he having laid a foundation, and not being able to finish, all who are beholding may begin to mock him, saying -- This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

There is so much satisfaction in finishing a project no matter how small. I took a CS class back in 2002 and one of the coding assignments, I bombed. For some reason, it bothered me so much for years that in 2011, I went back to the professor's website and the specific Class from 2002 (webpage was still up) and finished the assignment myself as a side project. It felt so satisfying even though no one was watching anymore. I got that damn code to work exactly to the specs in the assignment :). So weird but satisfying.

This reminds me of an advanced c++ class assignment where I had to implement a concurrent data structure and extension to do it lock free. I couldn’t do it at the time, will try again!

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