My problem is a bit different, and I'm curious if others can relate. I constantly have a project in the works, but once I solve the interesting technical hurdles and prove that the concept works, I suddenly think of a "better idea" and never actually release anything. I've been in this cycle for the better part of a decade now.
But let me tell you, if my current project works out, I'll never have to work a W2 job again!
100% this. I have become better about not nixing projects I am working on when I hit technical walls recently. My strategy has basically become to just do the bare minimum to test whether an idea is good or not and if it sucks I will at least have fulfilled my intellectual curiosity and then I can stop being distracted by that idea.
For example, I am currently working on a project to send personalized slack messages in bulk. But I then became really interested in the idea of automatic podcast transcription using GPT-3. So I ended up just one night banging out a prototype on jupyter notebook and it turns out the auto transcription was pretty bad and expensive, but at least I know now. So now I don't feel as bad and I can focus on the boring aspects of building this slack plugin, like accepting payments.
This is exactly me. It is like I get bored as soon as I realize that I could do something, and move on to the next thing.
The book "Refuse to choose" was really enlightening to me, it talks about "scanners", people that have this attribute. I felt very seen and it taught me that this style of working can be an incredible strength.
I once had an artist friend who was world class in his medium. I mentioned to him one day that I have a lot of unfinished code and his response has stuck with for over 20 years.
He said great artists have one thing in common, they finish projects. It's OK to have a workshop full of experiments, but you must finish projects.
I've always taken it to mean that forcing your self to do that last 20% of a project is the only way to learn how to make something great.
Maybe, as a suggestion, launch a Notion page with your “100 side-project ideas I never got around to making” — perhaps this will get that juices flowing?
