3 Simple Tricks Helped Me To Finish My Side Project
Everyone has a million dollar idea but not a million seconds to make it a reality. That’s why all these million dollar ideas fail. Only a very few of them becomes successful.
Fortunately, three guided tricks helped me to finish my side project. I am sure you can apply these tricks to your side project as well.
Side project is our stepchild
Before your side project, you have a full-time job, time filling family, few friends, some untouched hobbies, multiple internet-connected devices, and a smartwatch that notifies frequently. All of these get priority and steal your time. That’s why our side project does not get the attention it deserves.
I have been swinging three years with my side project but didn’t make any measurable progress. I learned the hard lesson- moving isn’t progress.
There has to be an easier way to manage priority
One day, I realized my boss’s boss’s boss who manages at least 250+ people doesn’t seem to be over burdened. He usually has chilled out lunch, fun weekends, stories about his kid, and so on.
This didn’t make sense to me. How come an executive of that level isn’t stressed out? One day I asked him- “How do you manage your time, work pressure and so many responsibilities”.
He smiled and told me- “It’s not that bad at all. Rather tell me why you asked me this question. Then, I will be able to tell you in a way that will help you.”
1. Those who cause your dream to wait can wait
After listening to my story, he asked me few questions about my lifestyle and my interactions with digital devices and gave me a challenge.
No immediate response challenge
He told me don’t reply immediately. Any email, phone call, chat message I get for next two weeks, can wait. I would not reply any of them immediately. I can only reply the next day.
Initially, this was very hard for me. I am the person who replies emails immediately. Seeing a notification and not replying was intriguing. But I force myself to take the challenge.
Lesson from the first challenge: I realized a lot of the times, people ask silly question that they can figure out after few minutes by themselves. A lot of people have other alternatives if you are not available. And I became less reactive to all these virtually connected people.
2. Fragment the Urgent Challenge
After the first two weeks challenge, I met Tim. We talked few minutes and then he gave me another challenge to figure out real urgent and fake urgent tasks.
He told me- “Urgent, is a dream killing agent. Anything urgent will throw you away from your dream, from your mission.”
There are two kinds of urgencies and I have to deal with those urgencies separately.
2.1 Catch the fake urgent and batch them
All the facebook share, twitter buzz, youtube trends, reddit hot creates fake urgency and drags us away from what you want to do.
The challenge is not to check social media all day. My habit of hourly email checking got challenged this time. From now on for next two weeks, I have to batch those checking two times in a day. Better to be 12.00 to 1.00pm and 7.00 to 8.00pm.
2.2. Timebox the real urgent
There are few urgent tasks like work deadline, basement leakage, backyard grill party, spending time with your girlfriend while she is shopping is completely unavoidable. Those tasks have to be time-boxed. I have to declare ahead of time that how much time I will spend on a certain task and have to follow it.
In those two weeks, I made my phone silent. Installed an app named as IFFT with an extension that will start ringing my phone if someone calls three times in a row. Rest of the call or text will remain silent.
Lesson from the second challenge: My biggest lesson was to figure out which tasks are really urgent and which one is a fake urgent.
3. Glue the Value Challenge
The Third challenge was to put value creating on my calendar. Tim recommended me to write down tasks for 2 to 3 hours block on the weekends. Every task I put for the weekend I have to ask two questions to myself
- Will this help me to achieve my goal?
- Will I be proud of this task after one year from now?
If both answers are yes, I can put the task on my calendar.
Lesson from the third challenge: In the third challenge I started seeing value on my calendar. I started seeing progress. Not some random busy works that I was doing last three years.
19 weekends later
These three challenges changed my life. I become more organized and focused on the result. 19 weekends later, I have the alpha version of my programming learning app.
This app will teach programming to absolute beginners in a fun and interactive way. For the app, I have teamed up with a fellow developer who is focusing on coding. I am focusing on app content and product development. I have created the following gif to explain if-else to brand new developer.
Celebrate the small win
As we have finished the alpha version, we are calling it as a success. We need 5 more weekends to upgrade the design before we launch beta.
Want to be a part of it?
Currently, we have shortlisted few names for our programming app. Such as programming mama, programming hero, Coding Gem. Which one will you vote? Please comment below. And feel free to propose a new name.
If you are curious to see what we are building, please sign up as a generous beta tester to give us feedback.
Thanks for reading :)
More where this came from
This story is published in Noteworthy, where thousands come every day to learn about the people & ideas shaping the products we love.
Follow our publication to see more product & design stories featured by the Journal team.
