travis_bumgarner_demo_v2.pdf

Lessons from 12 Years of Abandoning Side Projects

Posted Thu, 27 Mar 2025

My biggest passion in life is side projects. I love learning new skills. I love bringing ideas into existence. I've started a bunch of side projects. I've abandoned just as many.

I made a GitHub Graveyard where I could move these dead projects so they weren't cluttering the rest of my profile. I even spent time writing a script (long before AI) to conserve the commit history so I could really quantify my failures.

In the last year I've released a video game, an iPhone app, and a Python library. I won't claim to have everything figured out. As recently as two months ago, I was adding new projects to the graveyard.

Along the way, I have observed, learned, and formed some conclusions. Every conclusion, as my coworker Sam used to say, “is a strong opinion, weakly held".

Preface

We are all different.

I've always had a problem with the phrase “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. What if you're an extrovert? I'm an introvert. What recharges you is going to do the opposite for me. We're all unique. We're all in different phases of our lives. The observations below, pertain to me. More specifically, to the me that exists today. Be skeptical. Learn what works for you.

Health

Go to therapy.

Side projects are a huge part of my life and therefore a reoccurring topic in therapy. A lot of my conclusions have been from observations made in therapy.

Meditate.

I don't. I should. You should too.

Don't force it.

I've heard the saying about “motivation is fickle and you need to be persistent”. To some extent, I believe that. However, pushing yourself too hard is a quick path to burn out.

Take breaks and ask for help.

I'm stubborn. If I can't figure something out I won't give up. I have observed that this has huge diminishing returns. Getting stuck on something for more than half an hour is a good indicator. Take a break. Ask for help. Try again tomorrow.

Technology

New technologies don't solve everything.

There's something to the expression “better the devil you know”. I hate technology ABC. I've also been using it for 10 years and have shipped both work and side projects to production many times. I know its quirks. I was itching for something better so I tried out DEF. DEF didn't integrate with that other tool. I tried out GHI but it too had its problems. I went back to ABC. ABC works well.

Use code written by others.

I used to maintain a boilerplate generator. I prided myself on maintaining a huge collection of custom React components. There would be days where all my time would be spent maintaining this code. Code that brought literally zero value to users. It made me feel good though.

What an utter waste of time.

Vite offers a well maintained boilerplate generator. Material UI has a solid collection of React components.

You're not Facebook.

Stop building ridiculously complex systems. Your side project might become the next Facebook. That's a problem for future you. For now, stay focused on the value of your project. Uptime doesn't matter if it's not complete or nobody's using it.

Time & Energy Management

There's more to hobbies than continuing your career after work.

I struggle with this one. I really really like writing code. I get paid to do it. I discuss it with friends. I spend my free time doing it.

There have been days where I've woken up feeling creative. My body autopilots to the keyboard. Then I just sit and stare blankly at the wall. I've learned to try and turn off the autopilot in these moments. I'll get up, grab my camera and go outside instead.

Go Touch Grass.

It's good for you. Go do it right after you finish reading this article.

9 to 5 versus 5 to 9.

I once went out for drinks to catch up with a former coworker. They'd recently quit their job from exhaustion. They shared in frustration that every time they left a job, they were replaced by two people.

If you find your life's satisfaction in your 9 to 5, you're reading the wrong article. If you want more time for side projects, start guarding your 5 to 9 and stop giving all your mental energy to your day job.

I don't have kids.

This makes it much easier for me to carve out time.

Capitalism

Stop aiming to monetize everything.

Capitalism sucks. Not everything needs to be done in exchange for money. I've found that one of the quickest ways to kill joy in a hobby is to try and get paid for it.

I will caveat the previous bit with the following - programming used to be just a hobby and now I get paid to do it. If I decide to quit software, I've strongly considered turning either my hobbies of woodworking or photography into my job. Until then, I don't want to get paid for them.

Completing Projects

It's fine to take a break or stop completely.

Is it more work than you expected? Is it not as fun as you thought? Is it not what you want to spend your time doing? Sunk costs keep me pushing long after I should have stopped.

Pay attention to what you don't enjoy doing.

After many years of paying attention, I've come to realize that I hate the last 5% of any project. It always ends up being the most tedious, mind numbing, head banging work. I'd tell myself reasons to quit. I've listed a few of these reasons in the previous section. Nowadays, I try to keep this in mind as I'm thinking of giving up and I tend to push myself forward towards the finish line.

Finish first. Improve later.

This has become my mantra. I used to meander, constantly thinking, 'Ooh, it'd be fun if I could do X,' or 'Ooh, it'd be fun if I could do Y.' Before I knew it, I'd accumulated 100 unfinished features. There would always be room for improvement. Three months later I'm moving the project into my project graveyard. Now, when I start to think “Oooh, ...”, I stop. Pause. And repeat “finish first, improve later”

Know your limits and know your strengths.

I'm constantly amazed when I read stories of folks that can stick with things. Just last week I read a post on Reddit from a guy who'd been developing the same game for 10 years. I can't even remember what project I was working on a year ago. Photography is a perfect hobby for me. I can take a picture, put down the camera for 10 months, and still point to photos I am proud of that I have made.

Are you getting work done or chasing a dopamine hit?

I was 99% done with a project. I loathed the last part. I procrastinated. Hard.

Without realizing it, I was a week into building a time tracker app I never actually wanted or needed.

I realized I was chasing dopamine. Starting projects are so much fun. Everything is new. Everything is interesting. There is nothing hard in starting a new project. There's a lot of dopamine to be had.

Finishing a project though? That can be rough. All the worst tasks seem to accumulate at the end of a project.

Know why you're doing it.

I set out to make a printer from scratch. It was going to have all custom hardware, software, and a new programming language. Any of these bits could have been its own project with months or years of work. I also live streamed the entire thing.

I managed to draw a square. As I paused to enjoy this milestone, I also realized the absolute mountain of work that sat in front of me. I crashed and burned out hard.

I took a very long break from side projects. I retrospected. What went wrong? I realized that I hadn't really set proper goals for myself. What I was attempting to do would have taken a well funded company months or years to do with several engineers. If my goal was to learn how printers work, I would have called that an amazing success. If my goal was to acquire new skills, I too would have called that an amazing success. But I had no goals, and I bit off a lot more than I could chew.

In Closing

Side projects have taken me through frustration, joy, burnout, and breakthroughs. I've built things I love, abandoned others, and learned something from all of it.

The journey isn't always smooth. Sometimes, I chase dopamine instead of progress. Sometimes, I quit just short of the finish line. Nevertheless, I keep coming back. Because for all the false starts and unfinished features, there's nothing better than bringing an idea into existence.

So if you're out there, making things, struggling through the last 5%, or wondering if it's even worth it—just remember: finish first, improve later.

Until next time, happy making.