This is a great idea - I definitely continually fall into the same rut. Spelling it all out for yourself ahead of time is a good way to set a roadmap! I also think 7 is a more realistic number than 12, setting realistic goals is important for setting yourself up for success. By December 12, 2020, I'm hoping to have completed the following seven:
Finish my music synthesizer/generator project, with rudimentary music authoring and a playable keyboard.
Build a graphical game of Yahtzee using Rust/WASM with networked play and an AI opponent.
Complete porting my portfolio to Gatsby.js instead of homebrew DIY mish-mash, and re-host all DEV blog posts there.
Build a more robust attendance system over my first attempt that isn't so tightly coupled to one particular school.
Add a new feature to the DEV codebase - right now I have my eyes on a way to embed MIDI files in posts using liquid tags.
Add features to my home-grown Lisp interpreter so I can dogfood Advent of Code 2020 in a language I built myself.
I dunno, maybe get a tech job :)
A bunch of this is stuff I've already messed around with and have repositories for - starting projects is fun, but 2020 is going to be about the follow-through.
I've seen some playable keyboards and they're so cool!
My portfolio site right now has the blog part just linked to DEV but I might switch it at some point.... or redo the whole site. I'm not as happy with it now as I was when I first made it.
Those all seem like great goals! I like how so many are multi-part.
I hope to get a tech job within the next year but I'd also be good with doing SEO and/or social media with a different company because I do enjoy it.
I'm not as happy with it now as I was when I first made it.
Every time I feel stuck for what to build, I just look through my super old GitHub graveyard, and then I get overwhelmed at how much work I really do already have in front of me...
On the one hand it's cool to see the skill progression in yourself, but on the other what the heck was Past Ben thinking?!
I have two graveyard projects right now. One was redoing a final project because it was a mess and the other is a connect four board but I have no desire to do either anymore so I set new goals. Hopefully I finish these? Those were also ones other people told me to do so I think just wanting to do them for myself will encourage me more.
I don't think there's any real harm in moving on from a project that hasn't captured your interest as long as you're dropping it in favor of something you actually will build and learn from.
A connect-four board sounds pretty fun, though, maybe something to revisit in a new style down the road? I like having small projects I feel I fully understand, they're good for learning new tools and paradigms so you don't also need to learn a whole new problem. It's way easier to learn one thing at a time.
I'm keeping it on my GitHub so if I decide to do it down to road I won't be starting from scratch. It was a starter project for Chingu but it ended up lining up with a vacation I planned and I didn't have time to finish before I left.
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This is a great idea - I definitely continually fall into the same rut. Spelling it all out for yourself ahead of time is a good way to set a roadmap! I also think 7 is a more realistic number than 12, setting realistic goals is important for setting yourself up for success. By December 12, 2020, I'm hoping to have completed the following seven:
A bunch of this is stuff I've already messed around with and have repositories for - starting projects is fun, but 2020 is going to be about the follow-through.
I've seen some playable keyboards and they're so cool!
My portfolio site right now has the blog part just linked to DEV but I might switch it at some point.... or redo the whole site. I'm not as happy with it now as I was when I first made it.
Those all seem like great goals! I like how so many are multi-part.
I hope to get a tech job within the next year but I'd also be good with doing SEO and/or social media with a different company because I do enjoy it.
Every time I feel stuck for what to build, I just look through my super old GitHub graveyard, and then I get overwhelmed at how much work I really do already have in front of me...
On the one hand it's cool to see the skill progression in yourself, but on the other what the heck was Past Ben thinking?!
I have two graveyard projects right now. One was redoing a final project because it was a mess and the other is a connect four board but I have no desire to do either anymore so I set new goals. Hopefully I finish these? Those were also ones other people told me to do so I think just wanting to do them for myself will encourage me more.
I don't think there's any real harm in moving on from a project that hasn't captured your interest as long as you're dropping it in favor of something you actually will build and learn from.
A connect-four board sounds pretty fun, though, maybe something to revisit in a new style down the road? I like having small projects I feel I fully understand, they're good for learning new tools and paradigms so you don't also need to learn a whole new problem. It's way easier to learn one thing at a time.
I'm keeping it on my GitHub so if I decide to do it down to road I won't be starting from scratch. It was a starter project for Chingu but it ended up lining up with a vacation I planned and I didn't have time to finish before I left.