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5 Tips to work on your side project while working full-time.

Yogini Bende on April 06, 2021

Hello folks, It’s been a year since I am working on one of my product idea and finally was able to open a waitlist for that. The idea isn’t that ...
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ash_bergs profile image
Ash

I heard once "Don't worry about reaching perfection, you'll never get there anyway," and really liked that quote.

Great post about having realistic expectations of ourselves and our time, and I love the idea behind Peerlist! Cheers! 🍻

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Shafiq Jetha

I had a manager once tell me “perfect is the enemy of done”, and that helped me out a lot. Whichever saying makes you realise that perfection isn’t your immediate goal will help you focus on what actually matters.

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Balvant

Perfect quote on "Perfection".

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ayobami shepe

I learnt this the hard way. Thank God for growth.

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Yogini Bende

Hey Ash,

Well quoted on perfection. I every time used see myself falling for that perfection loop until I made conscious efforts on that. And thank you for checking out Peerlist. It means a lot when you are working hard on something!!

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Oziel Perez

Additionally, whatever project it is you are building on the side, be sure you do enough research on what it is that will be needed for the app (Front end interface framework, back end framework and language, performance requirements, server deployment, database, etc.) so that you can map out how the app will be built and which tools will be needed, saving you time and reducing risk of having to make huge changes mid-project.

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Yogini Bende

Cannot agree more! Selecting the correct technology and tools reduces the odds of failing later. So better to make early wise decisions.

Good point to add in the list 🙌

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Adrian Skar

2, 3, and 4 are the ones I relate to the most. Great reminder that, as I read somewhere, as much as we wan't to treat our brains as machines they are meat and water that have specific needs. Keep it up!

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madza profile image
Madza

Number 3 is so important. There is no perfect state for any app, game, or website. There will always be varying opinions and stuff to improve based on them. 😉

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Yogini Bende

Yes, as I said perfection is subjective. What seems perfect to me may be mediocre for you. So better to find early balance and improve continuously.

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dastasoft

Nowadays that most of us are working from home the "Create strict time boundaries for your office hours and side project hours." I think this is the most important thing.

Lately I findvery difficult to separate both worlds because at the end of the day you are sitting in the same place with the same hardware and even doing similar things. It used to be easier to grab the laptop and go outside to have a real difference doing your side projects, now it's more of a mental decision than a physical one.

As for "Don’t rush for perfection, it is overrated!" I think all developers have this "problem" for me it was useful to pursue 80% of the quality I aim to achieve with the product, it helps you to be able to move projects forward and get things done.

Very good article and very cool idea of the Peerlist website.

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Yogini Bende

It is really difficult to separate things sitting on the same desk in a same environment! But as you said, finding solution on that will make us better everyday!! I am glad that this article helped you in some way!

And also, thank you for checking Peerlist!

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Rahul

This website is same like. How to work on your side project while studying as 12-Class-Student. This is an amazing post I read this week. All the points were amazing but I would really be on the 2nd and 3rd. I have always struggled to make my project perfect but perfect is not always good.

Amazing post tho..

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Yogini Bende

Perfection is good to achieve when you have something in your hand. But till that moment, just keep perfection on lowest priority. I have learnt it hard way and just wanted to help some people not to do same mistakes as mine!

Thank you for your kind words on the article! I am glad it helped :)

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Akin C.

Hello Yogini Bende,

thank you for your article! I enjoyed reading it :)!
I have some opinions to share on some topics in your article.

"3. Don’t rush for perfection, it is overrated!"
I agree and want to add that clean coding or let's say a structured and consistent project at every level is well worth the time. This will help make it easy for every team member understanding and working on the project.

"5. Do small releases!"
I love this one, because I can relate :).

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Andres Urdaneta • Edited

Sometimes I feel like everybody at my job sees me like “crazy to go home” when my shift has ended. While they stay 15min passed the schedule without any rush, or even more. I’m the first leaving everyday when the clock hits 5:00pm. But let’s consider this: it takes me 45min to get back home, like an hour at least to do the things you have to do on a daily basis (walk the dog, dinner, etc), and then that leaves me with around 2h-3h of spare time if I get lucky. And by the time I’m ready for coding I really have to push forward because at that point I’m exhausted.

It’s a grind for such daily small progress.

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Yogini Bende

We have to sacrifice something if we want to do some great thing!
I know this because when everyone enjoys a weekend we feel its a great time to work! But I guess this small progress and these smaller wins will lead us somewhere. Let's keep doing it.. more and more 🙌

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Jane Jeon

As someone who’ve been jumping from a job to pandemic unemployment to another full-time job and have inadvertently left my projects (my babies!) unmaintained for a full YEAR, I really appreciate posts like this.

Recently I’ve been trying to get back into the game, and for me it’s point #3 that was really dragging me down (as in, I’d think about how I should plan this “perfectly” and then and only then, would I go and implement stuff).

It’s really toxic, and combined with #4/5, I found that breaking things down into SUPER tiny, nested tasks helps - I can still satisfy my irrational need for things to be “perfect” the first time around, while still feeling like I don’t have to climb Mt. Everest every time I want to make a slight progress in my projects :)

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Yogini Bende

Absolutely! Taking one day at a time, one step at a time!!
Do share your projects.. would love to see. All the best!!

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ruslan • Edited

Совершенство. Как много заложено в этом слове, Сколько людей столько мнений ,но знаю одно когда ты учишься водить машину ты это делаешь не спеша и при этом стараешся соблюдать правила. Проходит время и твои старания не проходят даром .

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James Schleigher

Thanks so much for the helpful article!
I mostly just use project management software and keep track of my tasks and deadlines, I never really thought about how I should do it.
I use Quire to manage my tasks and a timer to time myself.

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Khuram Javed

I have found this post very very much helpful, inspirational, motivational and learning rich post.

I am also doing a side project, but I have issue chosing frontend theme for Angular.

Can you please provide some help how to chose best design UI and good designer?

I have shortlisted two: Material and Tailwind. One is free the other is paid but I am looking for the quality. I want to know your thoughts and would be very thankful if you please like to become my mentor...

Please answer and help me in this regard.

Thanks
Thanks you so much...

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Yogini Bende

I am a big fan of Tailwind. So would definitely suggest you to go with it.

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rounakcodes • Edited

Too much negativity for perfection in the comments made me write this. Yes, true, striving for perfection won't help you get it done. That is also the beauty of it. A work of art is never complete but it lives.
If I work on a side project, it would be to lose myself in it. True learning would also come when there is freedom to experiment without any limits. The product may not finish, but you continue to add to your knowledge every moment you spend on it.
To demonstrate my ability to meet deadlines, I have my daily job.

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Vaibhav Khulbe

have boundaries clearly defined.

1% progress is still a progress.

That's it. There you wrote two important points.

I can really dig into what you have to say in this article. It was a good one.

And if you are wondering what consistency can bring you. Here you go:

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Yogini Bende

Thanks Vaibhav!
I have already read that article few days back and I completely understand what you said there. Consistent efforts in the key and there is no substitute for that!

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Sergei Novikov

Thank you so much for this post/ Hope i can use these tips. I feel they are what i was waiting for for the last few years to manage my pet project.

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Yogini Bende

Glad to help you in some way! 😇

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Graham Morby

I wonder if this could apply to learning , I’m trying to work full time, run a side project and learn iOS development !!! And be an adult!! It’s so hard to fit it all in

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Yogini Bende

Anything can be your sideproject 😉

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Hari Kotha • Edited

#3 is super true and i learned it the hard way!

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Yogini Bende

Me too!

That’s why shared it here so at least others don't have to 😇

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Sebastian Landwehr

Very inspirational article, thanks! I can also relate a lot to the perfectionism topic and can tell that it mostly keeps me from releasing and sharing things :P.

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Yogini Bende

I hope we all learn and move on from perfection 😄

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Mr-Robota

Early optimisations are the roots of all evil

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Yogini Bende

Yes! And those optimisations are never ending!

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Simon Jang

This is a great post, thanks. I've been struggling to continue/finish side projects and these tips are helpful.

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Ilgar Babayev

This article inspired me to continue my project 🙂

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Yogini Bende

That's huge! Happy to see it is helpful! 😀

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Ishaan Sheikh • Edited

I really need to follow these points, there are many side projects which I want to work on, but unable to do so as I am unable to manage my office hours.

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adams mercy

Nice tips, thanks for sharing