😵‍💫 The Solo Dev Struggle Is Real: Projects, Deadlines, Life… All at Once!!

Being a developer isn’t just about writing code.
It’s about managing everything — sometimes all at once:

Learning new frameworks

Building side projects

Balancing school, work, or life

Trying to stay sane 😅

And if you’re working solo… it hits different.

🧩 “You’re the Developer, the Designer, the PM… and the Janitor.”
Sound familiar?

You come up with an amazing idea. You start building it with full energy.
You’re deep into it — coding the backend, tweaking the UI, writing docs...

Then life happens:

🎓 You’ve got exams.
💼 Or client work.
🏥 Or just burnout from pushing too hard.
And suddenly that awesome project is stuck in “90% done” limbo on your desktop.

📁 Welcome to the “Unfinished Projects” Graveyard
Let’s be honest:

That productivity app you started?

That AI-powered tool you built 80% of?

That portfolio redesign that looked 🔥 but still says “Coming Soon”?

They’re sitting in a folder. You swear you’ll finish them “soon.”

Every developer has that folder.

💭 So… Why Are We Doing This Alone?
Here’s the thing:
We don’t always need more motivation.
We need better connection.

What if we:

Paired up with others in the same boat?

Shared unfinished ideas and built them together?

Had spaces where devs could jump in and contribute, no judgment?

Imagine an ecosystem where developers hand off projects like relay runners, instead of dropping the baton when life gets hectic.

🧪 Real Talk From Me
I’m saying this because I’m living it.

I was building an AI-powered README Generator.
It was 80% done, working beautifully… and then: 🧠📚 Exam season.

Now it sits there, waiting.

And I can’t help but think — if another dev saw the value in it, why not let them take it across the finish line?

🤝 Maybe It’s Time We Collaborate More
Let’s normalize:

Sharing half-done projects

Asking for help before burnout

Building with people, not just for people

It doesn’t make you less of a developer — it makes you a smarter one.

✍️ P.S. I might open-source my README Generator soon. If AI + productivity is your jam, ping me.

🧠 What About You?
What are the problems you face as a developer?

💬 Drop your thoughts in the comments:

What stops you from finishing projects?

Is it burnout? Impostor syndrome? Overwhelm?

Do you struggle with motivation, feedback, or just too many ideas?

Let’s build a thread of real, raw dev problems — and maybe we can find solutions together.

🗣️ Let’s Start Something Together
If this hit home, leave a comment.
Let’s not just code alone — let’s support each other.
Even a simple “same here” can make someone feel seen.

And who knows? We might just start something awesome together.

Comments

[Mike Preston]

I also see it from a slightly different perspective. I can knock out terraform, python apis, microservices etc. fairly easily - this is my strength - but frontend and design is my weakness. I often get disheartened at this point and put it on hold or slap a really poor frontend on it.

Allowing someone else to take the baton wouldn't be a bad idea - whether for open source or for commercial possibilities.

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Totally feel you on that, Mike. It’s interesting how so many of us hit a wall not because we lack skill—but because we’re juggling everything. Backend folks struggle with frontend, and vice versa. That “handoff” idea is underrated—whether it’s teaming up with someone who thrives in your weak areas or just being open to collaboration, it can breathe new life into half-finished projects.
Curious—have you ever handed off a project before, or thinking of doing it soon?

[Mike Preston]

It has often been a case where the project is architected specifically to allow this type of collab - ie. an API and services on the backend and frontend simply is an API consumer.

This tends to work well, especially with the advent of GenAI being able to take API descriptions and knock out reasonable frontend code fairly quickly.

That said, I have been exploring the hand off concept in more detail lately as I get the feeling that longer term we are going to be seeing more tasks being done by both humans and agents. The agent needs context and design rationale, but then again so does a human...

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Totally agree, Mike. That API-first architecture really sets the stage for smoother handoffs — both human and AI. I’ve been thinking about the “design rationale” part too… it’s not just about what to build, but why it’s being built that becomes critical for agents (and devs) alike. Curious — have you explored any tools or frameworks that help capture that rationale effectively?

[Mike Preston]

I've been working on what I like to call 'spec driven development' - we break the project down using a similar idea to 'C4'.

We define the problem, the preferred tech stack, the architecture that would solve it, then we start defining what the implementation looks like - mostly concentrating on dataflows and interfaces between parts.

Once you have interfaces you can define tests... You can then build each part - even in parallel - as you have the interface contracts and tests.

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Thanks, Mike – that’s a brilliant breakdown!
I love the "spec-driven development" mindset you're advocating. The interface-first thinking especially resonates — it really forces clarity early on and makes it easier to test, parallelize, and scale. I’ve been guilty of jumping into implementation too soon before fully mapping out dataflows or boundaries, and your method feels like a great guardrail.
Curious — do you use any specific tools or templates for defining those interface contracts and flows? Or is it more freeform (e.g., diagrams + markdown)?

[Mike Preston]

I mostly use json-schema to try to understand the structure of the data. Most of the time, the interfaces are subsets of the complete schema. The benefit is that being a text based format, LLMs are good at reasoning about it. It also means you don't get bogged down with the relationships in the database - SQL is quite verbose if you are using normalisation.

The other advantage is that should you want to keep it simple, you can just store your data in a json file on disk - makes backing up easy.

As to the flows etc. PlantUML and Mermaid are great for visualising things and are also text based - so same advantage for LLMs.

[Alex Rivera]

Loved this perspective. I think another problem we don’t talk enough about is impostor syndrome — sometimes I can finish a project, but I get stuck overthinking it.
Curious to know — what stops YOU from shipping a project once it's almost done?

[Melody Kelly. N]

I think I'll go with that. I have so many ideas, and sometimes having too many ideals makes it hard for me to decide on the next step.

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Totally get that, Melody — having too many ideas can feel like both a gift and a curse 😅.Sometimes I just pick one and run with it, even if it’s not perfect. Momentum matters more than clarity at the start, at least for me.
Would love to hear what kind of ideas you’re juggling lately!

[Dotallio]

That relay runner analogy is spot on - I always wonder how many of my half-done ideas could thrive if I shared them. Have you actually tried handing off a project to someone, and how did it go?

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Thanks, Dotallio! I’ve definitely thought about it—and once, I actually did hand one off. It was half-liberating, half-heartbreaking 😂 But seeing it grow in someone else’s hands was pretty cool. Might just do it more often. Have you ever passed a project baton yourself?

[Nathan Tarbert]

Been there with the endless half-done projects, man. Sharing the grind makes it a lot less heavy.

[Nishkarsh Pandey]

Absolutely, Nathan. It’s comforting to know we’re all in the same boat sometimes. Here’s to finishing at least one of those half-done projects this year! 💪😅