Small Projects

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of starting a new project idea and seeing it all the way through to finished and published.  It’s a feather in your cap that you can look back on and say “I built that”.  Regardless of if it is a big hit or not, it will make you a stand out – very few people get something all the way to done on their own.

Ambition can act against you in this.  The larger the project the more opportunties there are to hit roadblocks which derail it. The size of a project is a risk that should be minimized.

That’s why I believe it’s important to create momentum with smaller projects.  A small win still gives you a great amount of confidence.

This applies both to home projects, or code projects or hobbies.

Small is a relative term.  You may be able to handle a small 40 hour project, while someone else cannot yet tackle something that big.  Small may be as simple as fixing a wall hook or creating a pull request to fix a typo in the documentation of an open source project.

By putting a lot of these small projects together you create something bigger than the sum of them.  Fixing all the small things around your house can turn it into a relaxing home, Contributing to Open Source projects could gain you some notoriety and help you get a dream job.

Derek Sivers said “the best option is the one with the most options” and doing many small projects gives more options than one big one.

37 signals (now basecamp) started out with 6-10 individual products. When starting they didn’t know which would be a success so creating many smaller ones diversified their risk and helped them succeed.

Small projects are going to be a core part of my strategy for 2017.  Launching micro-sites, simple tools, or open-source libraries that can be finished in 8-10 hours of effort.

Think small, get out there, and finish it.  It’s a step to something bigger.