Bringing Structure and Intentionality to My Side Projects
Being a dad and full-time employee means I have limited time to work on side-projects. As a software engineer, I’m passionate about my craft – learning, coding, and building things in my spare time is a hobby that brings me immense enjoyment. However, my approach in the past was haphazard. I would work on whatever interested me at the moment with no clear plans, structure, or goals.
Recently, I took the time for some self-evaluation, a lot of freeform writing, and a little bit of brainstorming. In doing so, I was able to identify a set of broader goals that I want to focus on this year: meeting and interacting with more people, opening myself up to new opportunities, and increasing my surface area of luck while only working on things that I genuinely enjoy. I also pinpointed three creative areas that I can align with these goals: creating videos, building apps, and writing.
For video, I’m planning to launch a YouTube series where I share the pragmatic approach to building software that I’ve developed over a decade of experience (and a lot of other goodies and ideas). For app building, I’m currently exploring an RSS reader built with Go and web primitives. This is a fun side project that I hope leads to uncovering new patterns I can teach as well as tooling to create a stack I can use to more quickly build applications for fun. And for writing, I want to share more on my blog while also contributing to GopherBuilders.com, a site I built dedicated to helping Go developers become better application builders.
However, this is just a high-level overview of what I’m working on. Each of these areas has its reasons why I want to focus on it, how it aligns with my broader goals, and specific things I hope to accomplish. I’ll be diving deeper into each of these in future posts.
That said, having goals for these creative pursuits isn’t enough. They need a plan. So, I developed a structured approach to bring more intentionality to my work and hold myself accountable.
The Plan
Each month follows a cycle of three structured weeks, followed by a flexible period:
- Week 1: Video
- Week 2: App building
- Week 3: Writing
- Week 4: Flex work
The goal is to dedicate at least six hours per week to each creative area. That’s a realistic minimum that allows me to make steady progress while still leaving room for whatever life throws my way. How I divide those six hours is completely flexible. Some weeks, that might mean six one-hour sessions. Other weeks, three two-hour sessions. Or maybe I knock out a five-hour deep work session with a couple of shorter ones mixed in. The key is consistency, and the only rule is hitting six hours however it fits.
The flex period at the end of the month gives me extra breathing room. If I get sick, take a vacation, or just need a break, I can shift things around and still ensure I dedicate time to video, app building, and writing. And if everything stays on track, the flex period becomes an opportunity to wrap up unfinished work, dive deeper into something from a previous week, get a head start on the next cycle, or even experiment with something entirely new. The flex period is similar to how I’ve worked in my unstructured past, but it’s now backed by a process that helps me build better habits and improve my output.
Of course, a plan is meaningless if I don’t stick with it. To stay accountable, I’ll be reviving (or rather, finally starting) my newsletter. Each month, I’ll send out a recap of what I accomplished, how I spent my time, reflections on the process, links to anything I created, and a preview of my goals for the next month. While this is primarily to hold myself accountable, I also hope to share lessons learned so you might learn something too. I expect the format and frequency to evolve over time, but for now, this feels like a solid, manageable starting point.
If that sounds interesting, consider signing up – it’s the only place I’ll be sharing these updates, and I’d love to have you along for the journey!