How I try to make my coding side projects more worthwhile.

Adriaan J.v.R (AJ)
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

This article will be able how I try to make my side projects more effective and rewarding. Some of the information may not suit your work style. Enjoy!

One thing I hear all the time from some of my favourite YouTubers is the value of side projects. On one hand, it is a great idea, you are able to experiment with new technologies while also learning a lot in the process. However, one thing that always happens to me and I am sure many other people is, stopping work on your side projects. For me it normally comes down to, trying to create something over complex or finding something new to make. This got me thinking about some ways that I will be able to make my side projects more worth while and will help me to develop as a web developer.

Break down the project into smaller sections.

This is something that I have found very helpful. If you are like me, I always try to create the next “big thing” instead of using my side projects to improve my knowledge of the programming language. For example, a while back I had an idea for creating an Instagram type of website, very original. Of course, I stopped working on it because there is a lot of work that goes into it, the fact that I didn’t know the language very well either, did not help the situation. What I decided to do instead was break the major side project into several smaller projects. For example:

  1. User system (register & login functionality).
  2. Image uploading.
  3. Tag system with ‘tag pills’ as a user types in their tags [Example].
  4. User Profile page.

After breaking down the project I am able to tackle each of the smaller projects and be confident that I will learn from each of them and most importantly finish them! Doing this also helps you to create a collection of useful features that you’ll be able to use when you eventually start creating your big project.

Improve existing projects

Starting a new side project, I am always tempted to create something new but, one thing I never realised is the amount that I improve every week. Because of this, I sometimes like to revisit old projects or old snippets of code that I thought was really good at the time and try to improve it. Doing this will help you to understand what you could have done better and help to improve future code that you write. It will also serve as a confidence and motivation boost, especially seeing how much you may have improved since writing that function or plugin.

Create something you’ll use

Another way to help you to stay motivated and learn more from side projects is to create a website for yourself. This can be either a personal site for your portfolio or creating a small web-app to make a part of your life a little bit easier.

Recently I started creating a web-app for myself using Laravel and React, I wanted to learn some backend concepts as well as learn a popular library to stay ‘in the loop’. I decided to make a web-app to keep track of how much time I spent on different projects. This started off as an easy enough application, almost as simple as a cliche ‘todo list’ application. However, it did teach me about both languages and through using the website daily I have found many areas to improve and continually learning something new about these two languages and about the process of creating a web-app.

Summary

When setting out to start a new side project, it is important to try and finish them. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and gain a motivation boost. You’ll also end up learning a lot more compared to stopping when running into a small problem or simply getting too busy to continue the project. It is a good idea to try and break your projects into smaller projects and work on them. It will help you to focus on one thing and in return, you’ll learn how to create different types of functionality that you can add to your other projects.

Adriaan J.v.R (AJ)

Written by

React | JavaScript | WordPress | Laravel

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