How Many Small Projects Can Be More Satisfying Than a Large One
It’s easy to get carried away with a romantic idea to create one big project and then put all your creative energy into it. But developer Darius Kazemi found that small projects were slightly more rewarding.
When you take on many very small projects, you give yourself the opportunity to explore new ideas, fail, and not get stuck on specific ideas. These small, one to five hour serial projects can be very enjoyable because you are constantly trying new things and thinking about specific topics. There are other, more surprising benefits:
Having a large number of projects means you can very quickly watch your aesthetic evolve over time. If I was doing 1 big project a year, it would take me 3 years until I had 3 data points that I could look at and extrapolate some kind of forward movement. With 72 projects a year, I have tons of benchmarks. I can look back at what I built and say, “Oh yeah, it’s pretty clear that in the summer I was really interested in generating jokes, and then I moved away from that, but kept some elements until winter.” This will help you better theorize about your work and understand what you are doing.
Having a large number of projects means you have something to pull out for just about any occasion. When I talk to someone about art or code, there is usually a pertinent example that I can draw from my own work in conversation without giving it much thought. If there is an art exhibit where they want to present material on a specific topic, I probably did something related to that.
Obviously, this is not a viable thing for every career or hobby, but it certainly is one that most of us can do more. Visit Kazemi’s blog to learn how to do more projects, how to manage them, and more.
Thoughts on Small Projects | Tiny Subversions