Why you need a side project
It’s been almost two years since I started working for Kalibrr. We’ve grown from a one man design operation to a five-strong design team working across different products and processes in the organization.
Suddenly being thrusted into a mentorship position has forced me to really tap into both the good and bad experiences in my career and find a way to best keep young and new talent engaged, challenged and growing.
One thing I’ve particularly been adamant about with my new hires is creating a side project to work on besides the day to day work we have in the office.
It’s become part of every designer’s goals in Kalibrr’s Design team to create and keep a side project.
These efforts have lead into projects like Alex’s Podcast and Youtube Channel, Riel’s mini-documentary series, Intersections and our events like the World Interaction Design Day. It might be an additional task on most people’s busy weeks but we have our reasons to being so dedicated to the idea.
Pushing Creativity
Day to day design operations can get monotonous and with a large product like Kalibrr, you’re often designing for small specific instances.
The week after week iterations can get very boring in the long-run and it’s easy to get fatigued. This is where side projects come in.
Side projects help keep designers inspired, challenged and creative. A great example is Alexis’s design podcast, Roots.
His interviews constantly keep him updated with other people’s work and challenged which inspire and inform his work in the office. Having that extra set of eyes looking outside the company keeps people wanting to do more than we currently do. It keeps ideas fresh, innovative and makes sure we never rest on our laurels.
Building Empathy
When you work mostly with engineers and stakeholders in tight sprints, it’s easy to get engulfed in the work and silo-ed into your little area of the product or company. This can be even more true when you’re an introvert who has bouts of social anxiety.
A side project is a very helpful thing to have especially for a designer to practice empathy and understanding towards other people. It also helps designers learn the value of stories and storytelling.
A great example of this is Riel’s Intersections mini-documentary series where he gets to follow different people through their unusual hobbies day to day telling their stories.
Priority Zero
One thing we all learn in Kalibrr is the idea of Priority Zero. Priority zero means you, the employee’s well being should take priority. I’ve mentioned in interviews before that the moment you open your UX lens it’s quite easy to get depressed since nothing satisfies you anymore. You’ll constantly be asking why things aren’t easy enough or fast enough and that’s great it leads to innovation but it can also be very depressive.
Side projects allow you to take your design into your own hands and work on things you care about.
They allow you take a break and think about what makes you happy and what greater impact you can have with your work. This can be seen in all of our projects specially with our efforts around the design community like World Interaction Design Day where we constantly try to ask deeper questions about the responsibility of Designers.
Whether you’re a starting designer, or someone building a team, side projects are a great way to keep your design career growing. Design is a skill and like any skill, needs constant exercise to grow which is why we’ve invested so much of our team’s time to them.
We’ve even gotten to the point where as much as we can we a lot our Fridays and weekends to helping out with our team mates design projects (why work from home Fridays are a thing for us).
Find your side project, explore your passions and allow your team to find there's and for sure you will find it will benefit both your career and the organization as a whole.
