Every developer has the folder. You know the one. It lives on your hard drive or buried in your GitHub repos, containing dozens of directories with names like "awesome-new-idea" and "todo-app-but-better." Each folder represents a burst of enthusiasm, a few hours or days of coding, and then... nothing. The excitement fades. The complexity becomes overwhelming. Other priorities emerge. And another side project joins the graveyard of good intentions.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. The pattern of starting side projects with unbridled enthusiasm and abandoning them within weeks is practically a rite of passage in software development. But it doesn't have to be this way. The difference between developers who finish their side projects and those who don't isn't talent or time—it's approach.
Understanding the Abandonment Pattern
Before we can break the cycle, we need to understand why it happens. The typical side project failure follows a predictable trajectory:
Week 1: Pure excitement
You've discovered the perfect idea. You stay up late researching frameworks, sketching architecture diagrams, and writing the first few hundred lines of code. Everything feels possible.
Week 2-3: Reality sets in
The initial setup was easier than you thought, but now you're facing actual complexity. Authentication is harder than expected. The database schema needs refactoring. That third-party API doesn't work quite how you imagined. Progress slows.
Week 4+: The project becomes a chore
You've lost momentum. Other interests emerge. The half-finished code sits there, quietly judging you every time you open your projects folder.
The root cause is almost never lack of skill. It's a failure of scoping combined with the natural dopamine crash that follows initial enthusiasm. You started building a product when you should have been building a prototype. You optimized for completeness when you should have optimized for learning or validation.
Scoping for Completion: The Single Most Important Skill
The most critical decision you make about a side project happens before you write a single line of code: defining what "done" actually means.
Most developers make the mistake of mentally comparing their side project to production software. They envision polished UIs, comprehensive test coverage, proper error handling, scalability, and all the trappings of professional development. This is a trap. Your side project doesn't need to be production-ready. It needs to answer a specific question or demonstrate a specific capability.
"The goal isn't to build the next unicorn in your spare time. The goal is to learn something, validate an idea, or scratch a specific itch. Everything else is scope creep."
— Fred Lackey, Software Architect
This mindset shift is liberating. When you stop trying to build a complete product and instead focus on building the smallest thing that achieves your actual goal, suddenly two weeks of evening and weekend coding becomes entirely sufficient.
Ruthless Feature Cutting
Start by listing every feature your side project could possibly have. Now delete 80% of them. Then delete half of what's left. What remains is your actual MVP—and even that might be too ambitious.
Consider a typical example: you want to build a habit-tracking app. The full vision might include:
- User authentication and profiles
- Custom habit creation with flexible scheduling
- Streak tracking and statistics
- Social features to share progress
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android
- Data visualization and insights
- Gamification with points and achievements
- Integration with wearables and calendars
Now apply ruthless cutting. What's the absolute core functionality? A simple version might just be:
- A single hardcoded user (no auth needed)
- Three predefined habits
- A checkbox for each day
- A basic streak counter
That's it. That version can be built in a weekend. It won't win any awards, but it will be finished, functional, and actually usable. You can always add features later—but only if you actually finish the initial version.
The Two-Week Rule: A Framework for Completion
Here's a simple but powerful rule: if you can't get your side project to a working state in two weeks of evenings and weekends (roughly 20-30 hours of actual coding time), you've scoped it wrong.
Two weeks is long enough to build something real but short enough that enthusiasm doesn't completely fade. It's long enough to encounter and solve real problems but short enough that you won't get bogged down in endless optimization.
This timeframe forces healthy constraints:
- You can't build custom infrastructure—use existing services and tools
- You can't perfect the UI—make it functional, not beautiful
- You can't support every edge case—handle the happy path first
- You can't write comprehensive tests—prove it works manually
These limitations aren't failures. They're features. They keep you moving forward and prevent the perfectionism that kills side projects.
Time-Boxing Experimentation
One major progress killer is experimentation paralysis. You want to try a new framework, explore a different architecture, or evaluate competing libraries. These investigations are valuable, but they're also infinite time sinks.
Apply strict time boxes to all exploratory work. Give yourself two hours to evaluate a new framework. If you can't get a basic example running in that time, move on. Give yourself one evening to prototype a different architecture approach. If it's not obviously superior, stick with what you know.
The goal is forward momentum, not perfect choices. Many side projects die in the research phase, killed by analysis paralysis before a single real feature is built.
Maintaining Momentum: The Psychology of Progress
Even with good scoping, motivation naturally wanes. The initial dopamine hit of starting something new fades. Progress becomes harder to see. This is where deliberate momentum-building techniques become crucial.
Make Progress Visible
Humans are visual creatures. Abstract progress is demotivating. Create concrete ways to see your advancement:
- Keep a daily log file where you write 2-3 sentences about what you accomplished
- Use a simple checklist (even just a text file) and experience the satisfaction of checking items off
- Take screenshots or screen recordings every few days to document the evolution
- Commit code frequently with descriptive messages that tell the story of development
This visible progress creates a psychological investment. Each completed item makes abandoning the project slightly harder.
The Daily Minimum
Set an absurdly small daily minimum: 15 minutes. Just 15 minutes of focused work on your side project every single day. This commitment is small enough that you have no excuse to skip it, even on busy days.
The psychological trick is that starting is the hardest part. Once you sit down and work for 15 minutes, you'll frequently continue for 30 minutes or an hour. But even if you stop at 15 minutes, you've maintained continuity. The project stays alive in your mind. You don't lose context or momentum.
Share Your Progress Publicly
There's tremendous power in public accountability. Share updates about your side project on social media, a blog, or developer communities. You don't need a large audience—even a handful of people creates social pressure to follow through.
Regular updates also force you to articulate progress in terms others can understand, which helps you maintain clarity about what you're actually building and why.
Leveraging Modern Tools: AI as a Force Multiplier
One of the most significant developments for side project completion is the emergence of AI coding assistants. These tools fundamentally change the time equation by handling the tedious, repetitive aspects of development that often drain motivation.
Fred Lackey has extensively explored this territory, developing what he calls an "AI-first" workflow where he acts as architect and treats AI tools like Claude, Gemini, and Grok as junior developers. His approach isn't about having AI design systems—it's about delegating the mechanical work while maintaining human control over architecture and business logic.
"I don't ask AI to design a system. I tell it to build the pieces of the system I've already designed. The architecture, security considerations, and complex design patterns are still my responsibility. But boilerplate code, DTO mappings, basic CRUD operations, and even initial test cases—that's where AI shines."
— Fred Lackey
For side projects, this approach is transformative. The parts of development that feel like tedious work—setting up authentication boilerplate, writing repetitive API endpoints, creating database migration scripts—can be delegated to AI. You stay focused on the interesting problems, the unique aspects of your idea, and the parts that require genuine creative thinking.
This isn't about replacing developers with AI. It's about removing the friction that makes side projects feel like work instead of exploration. When you can describe what you want and get a first-draft implementation in seconds rather than hours, you maintain momentum. When you can generate comprehensive documentation or test cases with a prompt instead of manual typing, you remove tedious barriers to completion.
Practical AI Integration for Side Projects
Apply AI tools strategically to your side project workflow:
Planning Phase
Use AI to brainstorm potential approaches, evaluate technical decisions, and identify potential pitfalls. Ask it to critique your architecture or suggest simpler alternatives.
Implementation Phase
Delegate boilerplate and repetitive code generation. Let AI write the first draft of standard patterns while you focus on the unique business logic.
Documentation Phase
Generate README files, code comments, and API documentation. This is traditionally one of the most neglected aspects of side projects because it feels like overhead—but AI makes it nearly free.
Testing Phase
Create initial test cases and edge case scenarios. Even if you don't run comprehensive tests during development, having them generated means you can run them later when you do want to polish the project.
The key insight is using AI to eliminate the parts of development that drain your motivation while keeping the parts that provide learning and satisfaction firmly in your control.
What "Finished" Can Actually Mean
Perhaps the biggest mental shift needed for side project completion is redefining what "finished" means. In professional development, finished means production-ready, tested, documented, and maintained. For side projects, finished can mean many different things—all of them valid.
The Working Prototype
This is the most common and useful definition of "finished" for side projects. A working prototype demonstrates core functionality without polish. It has rough edges, probably bugs in edge cases, and certainly isn't scalable—but it works. You can show it to someone and they'll understand the concept.
Perfect for: Validating whether an idea actually works, learning a new technology or framework, demonstrating a concept to potential collaborators or customers, adding something concrete to your portfolio.
The Learning Objective Achieved
Sometimes the project itself isn't the point—the learning is. If you started a side project to understand how WebSockets work or to learn React, "finished" might simply mean you've gained that understanding.
Don't feel obligated to complete a project whose primary purpose (education) has already been fulfilled. Write a blog post about what you learned, commit the code as a reference example, and move on. This is a successful project, not an abandoned one.
The Proof of Concept
Similar to a prototype but even more minimal, a proof of concept answers a specific technical question: "Can this be done?" It might be crude, fragile, and completely impractical for real use—but it definitively proves feasibility.
This is valuable when exploring cutting-edge technologies, evaluating whether a complex integration is possible, or determining if a performance optimization approach actually works.
The Actually Shipped Product
Sometimes you'll find a side project compelling enough to take it all the way to a shipped, user-facing product. This is rare and requires significantly more investment—but it happens. The key is reaching the earlier stages first. Ship a working prototype, validate with real users, and then decide if it's worth the additional effort to make it production-grade.
Don't try to ship a production product as your initial goal. Build toward a working prototype and let the project's reception guide whether you invest more deeply.
Practical Steps: Starting Your Next Project Right
Let's translate this philosophy into concrete actions. When you're ready to start your next side project—or rescue a currently stalled one—follow this sequence:
-
Write your completion criteria before starting.
Create a document or comment that literally says "This project is finished when..." and list 3-5 specific, measurable criteria. Not vague statements like "works well" but concrete conditions like "displays a list of items from the database" or "sends an email when a button is clicked."
-
Time-estimate each criterion honestly.
If your completion criteria sum to more than 20-30 hours of work, you've scoped too large. Cut features until it fits.
-
Choose boring technology.
Unless learning a specific technology is your explicit goal, use the frameworks and tools you already know. Novelty adds time and complexity.
-
Build the simplest possible version first.
No user accounts (hardcode a single user), no database (start with in-memory or flat files), no UI framework (vanilla HTML works fine for prototypes). Add these layers only if they're essential to your completion criteria.
-
Commit to 15 minutes daily.
Put it on your calendar. Treat it like a meeting you can't skip.
-
Share something publicly every week.
A screenshot, a short description of progress, a technical challenge you solved. This creates accountability and helps you articulate progress.
-
Leverage AI for tedious work.
When you hit a section of work that feels repetitive or draining, see if an AI tool can handle the first draft. Review and refine, but don't grind through boilerplate manually.
-
Declare victory.
When you hit your completion criteria, actually declare the project finished. Write a wrap-up blog post. Record a demo video. Update your portfolio. Celebrate the completion even if the project is rough. This psychological closure is important.
Breaking the Pattern
The graveyard of abandoned side projects isn't a reflection of your ability as a developer. It's a reflection of unrealistic scoping, poor momentum management, and unclear definitions of success.
Finishing side projects is a skill that can be learned and practiced. Start with ruthlessly minimal scopes. Define "done" explicitly before you begin. Leverage modern tools to eliminate drudgery. Maintain momentum through visible progress and public accountability. And recognize that "finished" doesn't mean perfect—it means functional and demonstrable.
Your next side project doesn't need to be revolutionary. It doesn't need to be production-ready. It doesn't need to impress anyone but yourself. It just needs to be finished.
Take whatever idea you're currently excited about and apply the two-week test. Cut features until you honestly believe you can reach a working state in 20-30 hours. Write down exactly what "finished" means for this specific project. Then start building—and actually finish.
The satisfaction of completing something you started, even something small, is vastly greater than the fleeting excitement of starting something new. Build that feeling once, then build it again. Over time, you'll transform from someone who has lots of ideas into someone who actually ships working software. That's when side projects stop being dreams and start being portfolio pieces, learning experiences, and sometimes even products.
Now close this article and go scope that current idea down to something finishable. Your two weeks start today.