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Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli
Matt Ellen-Tsivintzeli

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Let your side projects languish

I think this comic sums up my experience with side projects.

I have loads and none of them are done, some might be close but none are finished. And I'm always starting more.

I think the comic makes it look like having lots of side projects is bad. I don't think it is.

Side projects are not your job. Maybe you want to have it as a side hustle, but that's a different thing, then you have two jobs.

Side projects are done for fun.

If you go to a museum, you can't fail if you don't see all the exhibits. You won't be fired, fined or reprimanded.

If your hobby is sports then you're in no peril for not winning. You won't be evicted for not completing a computer game.

Leisure time should not be viewed through the same gaze as work time.

As a general rule, you can't fail at leisure. (There are specific things, like free climbing, that one might say have a way to fail, but that's not what I'm getting at.) If someone is making you feel bad for how you enjoy your time off, then maybe they need to reëxamine their priorities.

So don't worry if you have a hundred side projects and you want to add more. It's your time. You're under no obligation to finish anything.

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Top comments (2)

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zedvas profile image
zedvas

That's the beauty of side projects. That's your art-making time. You can get as creative as you like. The only goal is to let your ideas and curiosity out to play with no restrictions. Who cares whether they're half-done.. or a quarter done.. or one-sixteenth done..

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theowlsden profile image
Shaquil Maria

Sounds like justification to me🤔

But for real, they are called side projects for a reason, you work on them on the side. It's like you said, you do it in your free time, so if you work on them every weekend or once in a blue moon it doesn't really matter. It's not like it's a life or death situation or like a sport that if you don't practice you'll get rusty.

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