Integrating Passion Projects with Everyday Life
Greetings, Programs, and happy 2024!
Since a new year is a chance for reflection, I have been spending some time lately looking back at different notes and documents I have created over the past several years. Among these files is a list I rediscovered that I created back in 2020 as a professional bucket list of sorts. I wrote this list right as I was starting my Sophomore year at CU Boulder, and at the time many of the items I included felt untouchable. Some of the items still feel untouchable (Invent something that will change the world is not a SMART goal by any means, but nonetheless it persists on the list), but upon reflecting on this document all these years later I was shocked at the realization that I have achieved several of these goals in the past few years. The existence of this website is in itself living proof that some of these items have been achieved! But this post is not meant to reflect on each of my dreams and ambitions in singular fashion. Rather, I am writing this post because I realized that most if not all of the items I have crossed off this list thus far have been due to the creation of personal projects in my free time. Everyone’s days are busy, whether they are occupied with work, school, or other duties of some kind, but I’ve learned since September 27th of 2020 just how much can be achieved if one spends their free time on passion projects. That is what I will be discussing in this post: how to integrate passion projects with everyday life.
A screenshot of my bucket list, exactly as it was when I initially wrote it in 2020.
The first step in achieving goals in any capacity is defining what those goals are. For me, that entailed sitting down at some point (at 11:32 PM, apparently) and just thinking about all I wanted to achieve professionally. Be honest with yourself about what you want to achieve and document those thoughts! If you are passionate about each of the visions you write down, you will be making the process easier and more enjoyable for yourself later. These goals can be anything you want them to be, but ideally they should be SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. For myself, as the name of any bucket list suggests, the time bound that applies to my entire list is the length of my life. Not all of my goals are SMART goals (looking at you for the second time, Invent something that will change the world), but some of that is by design. I wanted many of these goals to have some wriggle room for interpretation by my future self. For instance, the goal of Give a TED Talk does not mention a topic or venue, for I figured that I would determine these at a later date; as long as a TED Talk is formally presented, the item can be marked as complete. This can take as long as you want or need it to, but I’ve found it helpful to dream big when creating goals. The bigger the dream, the more proud of yourself you’ll be when you make it a reality.
Congratulations, now you have some goals! You know what you want to achieve with your free time! Now what? Enter the challenging (and fun!) part - choosing a goal to pursue in the near future, then getting to work and making your goals a reality. I mentioned the importance of passion earlier, and this is where that comes into play; if you are passionate about the work you are going to be doing, it will feel less like work and you will be more motivated to spend time on it. That said, working on personal projects can be draining despite an abundance of passion. So how does one juggle working on personal projects with the rest of the day’s responsibilities?
I think the key to balancing working on personal projects with everything else is thinking of the ultimate goals you set for yourself and working towards them. A personal project can feel like a second job, and it is often hard to be motivated enough to work on a personal project after a long day at work. It helps to spend some time at the start of this phase to break down the ultimate goal a bit more and determine tasks for yourself. If you’re working on a game, for example, what are the different components that you will need for your game? These can be broken down as much or as little as you would like - this is for your own benefit, after all! For example, let’s say you are trying to make a game similar to Tetris. Some tasks for making this game might be finding/making a soundtrack, finding/creating assets for the blocks, adding the ability to rotate blocks, adding the feature of the blocks falling at a variable rate which becomes faster over time, ensuring the blocks stop at the bottom of the play area and can stack on each other, adding the ability to remove rows when full, adding a scoring system, etc. These tasks may seem daunting when looked at as a whole, but it truly helps to take the process one task at a time. Maybe you’ll create the entirety of the soundtrack in a day, or maybe you’ll begin thinking about what the main menu might sound like. Regardless of the magnitude of your progress on a given day, you are still making progress and are chipping away at the tasks you’ve set for yourself. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
When you do what you can each day and make progress bit by bit, the act of looking back at all you’ve accomplished will help propel you further forward. You have to start somewhere, and the best time to start is now. Make your dreams a reality.
- James