Your Side-Project Should be More Fun, More Dev Pirate

Because Fun is Better than Boring

Let’s say Fun is your number 1 goal for your side-project. Fun means you gotta do EVERYTHING you can do to make it Fun. Or it’ll become boring, you wait and see. These three go together:

  • Fun
  • Un-opinionated programming in your use-cases you share
  • Not Big. Tiny

Read downwards. FUN.

Your Side-Project Should be More Fun

Lillian's Lemonade stand

Your side-project is just like Lillian’s Lemonade stand on Sunday. So let’s start with the hardest part of FUN: Tiny.

Big Become Boring

Making your side-project Tiny is harder than it looks. You have to remove EVERYTHING except the bare necessities.

So let’s start removing one bite at the time. I Lillian started with time.

Save Time Selling Lemonade

  • Make less lemonade, sell less lemonade
  • Move to a better location than last year
  • Lower the lemonade price from last year
  • Give an even lower price for buying 2 cups of lemonade
  • Give an even lower price for buying 3 cups of lemonade
  • Give an even lower price for buying 4 cups of lemonade
  • Give an even lower price for buying 5 cups of lemonade

Lillian Makes less Lemonade for her stand

How does Lillian’s list translate to your coding?

How Do You Save Hours On Your Coding Side-Project?

  • Peak time of day = Less Hours
  • Less coding tasks = Less Hours

Peak time of day = Less Hours

Find your Peak time of day, the time of day you usually perform at your best. Block out a couple of hours two days a week for your side-project. If you have to tell your boss, do it. If your boss is better off not knowing, don’t say a word 😺🏴‍☠️. Working on Your Coding Side-Project at your Peak time of day will save you hours because:

  • You’ll produce less bugs, saving you hours down the road
  • Your coding will be tighter, saving you time
  • Your decision making will be better, saving you time

Less Coding Tasks = Less Hours

That less coding tasks will save you hours sounds obvious, but how do you do it? Some ideas to save you coding tasks:

  • Copy paste the less interesting pieces of your Coding Side-Project from somebody else
  • No code tools like … and … We use squarespace for our company website lillylabs.no
  • Refuse to build parts of your Coding Side-Project

Lillian’s Lemonade stand on Sunday

bear necessities

More photos Lillian’s Lemonade stand

Lillian's Lemonade stand