Unlocks for side projects

Capturing ideas

The biggest unlock is the simplest. Capture every idea. I keep a spark file (inspired by Steven Johnson’s technique). When inspiration strikes—like an idea for a new project or a feature for an existing project—I add it to the top of my spark file. I have a monthly reminder to review the file, and I scan it from top to bottom. Some ideas still seem good, but I might not have the time, tools, or skills to bring them to life. Other ideas don’t make sense anymore (in the ‘what was I thinking’ sense). I don’t remove anything from the list. If an idea leads to a project, I give it a checkmark and maybe add a launch date.

Here’s a random sample of three ideas from my spark file:

• Use my markdown-based journal to generate a daily ‘on this day’ email. I created a working prototype, but haven’t finished it.
• Create a macOS app that highlights the current active window (helpful when I’m using multiple displays).
• Domain ideas for side projects. I find it’s better to write down ideas rather than buy and hoard domains I may never use. Not that I don’t own a bunch of domains I’ll never use…

(For the productivity nerds, I manage my list in Obsidian and use Things for recurring reminders.)

Visual inspiration and design

MEMEX is one of my side projects I use to this day. It’s my personal collection of visual inspiration. Kind of a private, self-hosted Pinterest. When I’m starting a project, I grab visuals from MEMEX and create a mood board in my current design tool of choice…

Figma. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard of it. For my side projects, I use a scratchpad file to build mood boards and explore design ideas. If I get serious about an idea, I’ll move it to its own file. For example, here’s my Figma file for this site.

Prototyping and building

When I want to see something in a browser as quickly as possible, I reach for Laravel Herd. On macOS, I open the ~/Sites/ folder, add a new folder (like myidea), add an index.html file, and view the page in a browser at myidea.test. I used Herd to make almost all the sites on my project page.

For more complex projects—like this site—Astro is my favorite web framework for building content-heavy sites. Even their basic starter makes it easy to start a new project and focus on building. If an idea leads somewhere, I can easily layer on design and features and launch the project. Astro powers my bookshelf and a recipe site.

Hosting

When I’m ready to launch, I point Cloudflare Pages to my GitHub repo and the project is automatically deployed. I have used Netlify and Vercel (both great), but I prefer Cloudflare. They have a generous free tier that’s perfect for the scale of my projects and they offer low-cost domain registrations so I can manage everything in one place.

That’s it. That’s the list. A modest set of techniques and tools that help me create side projects. Maybe they’ll help you create yours, too.