2015-04-03 - Two Questions

I tend to get a lot of ideas for projects. The problem is figuring out before you start whether or not you are going to be motivated to work on and finish a project. After all you don’t get much from not working on a project. I ask myself two questions when considering new project ideas and focus on those that have decent answers to both. The first question is what can I learn from it? The second question is what problem does it solve?

Learning is a big part of why I do things. I want to know more than I currently know and grow my skills and understanding of the universe. So if a project can help me learn something than that provides a big incentive to keep at it. The more I work on the project the more practice I get and the more I learn. Understanding what I can learn from a project will give an indicator of my motivation level through the beginning of the project.

Learning only gets you so far though. There's an upper limit on how much you can learn from a single project. What becomes important later on is what the project will ultimately do. Finishing a project will allow me to use it. Understanding what problem the project solves will give an indicator of my motivation through the end of the project.

Usually I start with a topic that I want to learn about and then I think about a project that will solve a useful problem using that topic. That way I can maintain my motivation to work on the project beyond the learning phase and hopefully end up with something that I can show off. A finished project that shows what I know and makes doing something easier.