Side Projects Delete

Being real with time in order to make progress on what you want to do (dev log 12)

Hey! It’s me Phi

Too many side projects, interests, hobbies, ideas, goals… and not enough time. My scatter brain always seems to want to do too many things and pursue them all at the same time. I have this unending list that will keep growing and growing.

This week has been side tracked with everything BUT the fishing game project. It’s been difficult to make progress on it because of my natural tendency to switch from project to project. Interest to interest. So much for grit. Or maybe I just have a lot of grit on a lot of different things. I’m unsure if this context switching is because I hit a wall of difficulty, run into a problem, just want to do the easy thing or just straight boredom. Either way, I do find my way back eventually because I’m a type to finish what I start.

If you’ve been following some of my notes this week, my current project (or distraction) has been working through a drawing workbook called Rapid Viz. It has a lot of good foundational concepts that are always good to practice or get a refresher on… like shadow construction…

exercises from Rapid Viz drawn on the reMarkable 2 Paper tablet

Audit and Edit

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve spent my time lately. Especially since I previously posted about making time for things that are important are important for you. I'm realizing (again) that I need to take a hard look at my time and edit the things that don’t progress my priority goal forward. If it does not add, or get me a little more forward to that goal, I need to edit and delete. And right now it should be the game project that’s most important. Thus, it should be that one that occupies most of my time.

Of course, projects can be shelved, put on the back burner, and returned for later to make room for other things. I often forget that and have to remember to circle back to what I started in the first place. Factor all of this in with family and obligations… and we’re left with little room to squeeze in those extra small bits of time you want to spend on all the other things. This is a hard pill to swallow for creatives who jump around a lot and crave to do more. Or honestly, anyone who wants to pursue different interests, hobbies, or life goals. My time sure looks crowded and is definitely in need of trimming…

mind map of how I spend my time on projects, hobbies, learning

It's easy to get caught in the trap of wanting to do it all at once… right now. But by choosing to audit our time and deliberately edit our commitments, we're not shutting down our creativity or the projects and goals we have. We’re choosing to make meaningful progress on what matters most to us… at this moment in time. It’s not abandoning it or saying no to those things… it’s just saying… not right now. So its ok to shelve it, put it on the back burner, let it marinate, ferment and simmer a little longer. Let it wait… it’ll be ok. It will soon have its time in the forefront for your attention. I believe that… and I need to do that.

So when do we audit and be real with the time we have?

Today.

Time is the currency here. And we all know how limited it is. Of course we need to make it worth it. Finding time for practice and projects becomes harder and harder as I clutter more of my days and weeks with other things I want to do. If we are not deliberate about how we spend that time, we might start to question where all that time went.

Admitting to the limited time, and editing the unlimited projects can be a serious gut check. But it's can be a continuous process of re-evaluation of priorities, instead of a complete delete I hope. Programmers refactor their code pretty often, constantly trying to improve, and optimize it. So why can’t we refactor our projects and time to optimize our focus more efficiently.

We’re never going to catch up and complete them all. I’ll admit to that. But I know by making conscious choices about where we invest our time, we can turn that someday list into today list. I’ll try to muster some grit this week and get another meaningful update on the game project next…

…grit is not just about quantity of time devoted to interests, but also quality of time. Not just more time on task, but also better time on task.

Angela Duckworth
Grit