

Ask HN: How do you manage side projects? - juvoni

I&#x27;m trying to find the right balance between development efforts for work and my own personal side projects.I was also inspired by John Resig&#x27;s blog about coding everyday. I feel if I had a more structured approach to going about side projects this would be easier to accomplish.<p>How do you go about planning and managing side projects and what tools do you use to maintain consistent development for side projects.<p>Any blogs or links to tools etc would be helpful.
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trcollinson
I am a consultant, and often have many projects or side projects going at all
times, between client work, products I build and sell myself, and writing I
do. I basically make private github repositories for myself. From there I make
"issues" in github for the work I need to do. I ALWAYS make these tasks small.
I have gotten to the point where I know about what I can get done in a half an
hour chunk and I write these tasks as "issues" for myself whenever I get an
idea. From there I simply "resolve the issue".

As a more concrete example. I have a repo for writing 2500-5000 word research
articles. I will come up with a topic and break it down into sub topics and
create github issues for each. Then I check in my writing to resolve the
issue. In other words, I will write enough for the subtopic and check it in
and make the issue complete. Same plan works for client code or personal
products I code. It's easy, low overhead, and I always have things to do.

The only other thing I do is try to resolve as many issues as I can in a day.
Sometimes personal projects take a back seat. But if you make your tasks about
a half an hour each, you will find you get great momentum and you'll have time
for each project you're working on.

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rebelidealist
Block the days off to focus immersively. Which means the days you are working
on a side project, try not to think about your main project unless there is an
emergency. More importantly, the days you are working on your bread and butter
main project, limit your urge to hack or get distracted by your side projects.

Going on a trip in a new place to really push and finish a project can be fun.
Bands do that when they are finishing an albums. They go to a place where they
won't be distracted by social pressures.

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murtza
Here's a great HN post on the topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6107815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6107815)

For motivation to keep moving forward, check out the projects on
r/SideProject:
[http://reddit.com/r/sideproject](http://reddit.com/r/sideproject)

