Since March, I’ve been helping out my sister by building her a nutritional calculator application. It sounded like a fun enough project initially, and she had been pestering me for help, so instead of risking her “vibe coding” something horrible, I took the project on.
I thought that doing something outside my comfort zone would help me grow, like many of my personal projects did in the past. Things started out fairly well, but June is here and there’s still no end in sight, and neither are significant learnings. This project feels like a pit without a bottom. I don’t want to work on it any more.
I imagine that’s how some people feel about their day jobs, and I feel for them! It’s a horrible sensation. I hope they at least get paid for their efforts. Meanwhile, I’m sacrificing my free time for it.
I took the last two weeks of May off from work and personal projects. I just consumed and relaxed, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel bad about “wasting” my time. I felt no significant urge to work on my side projects, was free of the feeling of time slipping away between my idle fingers.
That’s scary. Scary because it’s not like me, scary, because it showed me exactly how much I don’t want to work on my sister’s project any more. You see, whenever I was thinking about one of my other side projects, the nutritional calculator came knocking.
First, I found myself thinking that I couldn’t work on my own projects until that one was done. Then I didn’t allow myself working on my side projects if I hadn’t worked on the calculator first. Finally, I slipped into not working on anything instead.
In a sense, this was beneficial. It allowed me to really wind down and relax for a change. But it’s also taken away a huge source of satisfaction from my life. I love my side projects because I love building things. They give me the sense of doing something worthwhile with my time when my job or other circumstances make me feel trapped creating things of no value.
On paper, my sister’s project looked like it might fit that niche. The more I think about it, however, the more I feel like I only took it on out of a sense of obligation towards her. I just didn’t want to let anyone down. Doing things for friends and family often turns into a burden in my experience, however unfortunate that may be. This project in particular is just worse because there’s no end in sight…I have a fully built prototype, I have some actionable feedback I can implement after my last presentation of it, but there’s no clear path forward after that.
That also weighs on me. I have communicated that I need to work on other things, that I need a state where this project is done. Unfortunately, so far, there’s not been any clarification and I lack the energy and motivation to bring it up again. I feel a bit trapped by this project, like there’s no clean way to get out of it without disappointing someone.
I really need to be wary about the mental drain caused by projects I don’t really want to work on. I have enough of that outside my free time, they shouldn’t have a place within it.
Have you been in a situation like this? What are some good strategies to deal with it, beyond the usual clear communication? Feel free to let me know over on Mastodon.