Back when I first started designing and coding things for the web, one of my favorite channels was the one from a designer named Mackenzie Child.
In hindsight, one of his videos had a huge impact on me. Despite it being a simple video with a simple message:
But the great thing about our world today, with the internet and all the tools available to you, is that we can build stuff and just see what happens. You can trade in the time that you would spend watching Netflix or playing video games and launch that tool, or launch that blog, or create that YouTube channel. The most amazing thing about it is that most of the time, you don't have to invest anything other than your time.
I remember my 15 year old self being fascinated by this idea. This person who I look up to tells me that the one thing that changed his life is simply using his time in a more intentional way and, like, just create stuff? I don’t need anything fancy to get started? I can just do it?
Now, I didn’t stop watching Netflix after this video, but I started to work on projects more consciously. Nothing spectacular – most of the artifacts from that early time only exist on my hard drive. But I still did the work, simply because I wanted to and found it interesting. Not because I felt I had to.
Even if the obvious results of this mindset shift weren’t immediate, when looking back, it definitely changed my life as well.
Two concrete examples.
During the pandemic, I started to get interested in Webflow, because working in Wordpress at my day job didn’t bring me any joy anymore. So I started to tinker around with Webflow in the evenings and built small websites. A couple of months later, I applied as a Webflow Developer at another agency with a custom built site. On the same evening, I heard back from them and long story short, I got the job!
Sharing my work online played a huge role in this journey as well. From about 2018 on, back when “Design Twitter” was the coolest community on the internet I could imagine, I enjoyed sharing short snippets of my work on there. Sometimes design related, sometimes little coding projects. It’s how I met Cédric, another Swiss designer. After some time, he hired me for coding related freelance work and fast forward to today, I now work with him at the agency he co-founded last year.
I could continue with listing examples, but most of them, and that’s the truth as well, didn’t have this huge apparent impact on my life. Things like the #100DaysofSwiftUI challenge or when I made minimalist visualizations for each chapter of a book I really enjoyed.
Honestly, I think these projects were just as if not even more important than the obvious outcomes. They gave me much joy, allowed me to explore what I like doing and shaped my taste as a designer, coder, creator in general.
If you think about it, even writing posts for this blog counts as a side project. I never knew that I liked to blog but still, here I am. It doesn’t tie to my other design/code related creations in an obvious way. On the other hand, I think becoming a better writer, a better communicator, also makes you a better designer and programmer. So even seemingly unrelated side projects allow you to grow as a person.
One huge trap you can fall into though (which I probably fell into at times) is taking your side projects too seriously and trying to monetize your hobby in some way, shape, or form.
I think things like this shouldn’t be planned or expected. If they happen, they happen, if they don’t, they don’t. Both outcomes are ok.
At its core, side projects should always be driven by curiosity, because you want to create something that didn’t exist before. Not the desire to reach a specific (especially monetary) goal.
To summarize Mackenzie’s video and my own experience in one sentence:
Follow your curiosity, create things and you’ll be surprised where all of this takes you.