What is valuable when starting a new project?

Cover photo by Nick Fewings

One of the things I wanted to "debate" on the last post but didn't want it to be too extensive is the reasons I have to embrace this journey.

Let's keep all the political correctness gibberish outside and focus on ourselves. I feel like a lot of times we do things for other people when we should be doing for us. Of course, I'm not telling that selfishness is a quality I value, but we cannot put others' interests in front of our own every time. There is no harm in prioritizing ourselves when starting a new project.

How many times did at least one of these questions stop you from starting?

• Is this going to be useful to someone?
• Is anyone going to use this?
• Will people think less of me if I do it?
• If so many people have done this before, why should I bother?

I don't know about you but I ask these questions lots of times. But this time, I've come to the conclusion that:

• My project doesn't have to be useful to anyone, just to me.
• My project doesn't have to be used by anyone, even me. This is (usually) not the purpose of a new project.
• I shouldn't care for someone that judges me for trying.
• If I find this topic interesting or want to try to build it, the number of people that already done it doesn't matter.

For instance, one of the first projects I made when I was learning React was a Weather App (wow, how original!) It took a lot longer than it should because: I was busier thinking that no one needed my (or other) weather app than sitting on my chair and learning how to do it; I was worried by the fact that no one would use it (not even me, I don't care if it is going to rain or else); I had a prejudice when I was learning that To-Do and Weather apps were too simple to be bothered by anyone; I feared that my weather app would not be the most beautiful, well written and efficient out there.

By the time I finished got tired of it, I realized (and then forgot, and then remembered - this roller coaster keeps happening with everyone, I guess) that all these questions were irrelevant. I had grasped the initial concepts of components, array rendering via map, filtering, API calls with useEffect, etc. I'm not spending money on launching and marketing this application to be worried about all this kind of stuff. Bottom line: just do it for yourself.

Finally, here are the reasons I am writing this series with zero demagogies:

1. I want to endure the whole process of idea, creation, deployment, and sharing without quitting. The last two are the most problematic to me;
2. I want to learn concepts of Progressive Web Applications as I think it is a good concept to explore. I want to dive deeper into GraphQL too;
3. I want to start writing in English again. For the past years, I've been reading and listening to a lot, but not enough writing (apart of code comments!) and speaking;
4. I want to put myself in an uncomfortable situation instead of hiding behind my fears and insecurities;
5. I want to interact with people.