If there is one myth that I try to rail against, it’s the idea that creativity and ingenuity are inherent talents you just have rather than skills you can train and improve. In fact I’d go as far as arguing that training these skills can be incredibly useful, both inside and outside of work.

This article is mostly through the lens of a software engineer, however there won’t be big chunks of code or technical jargon thrown around, so it should be relatable for anyone.

Picture of a Useless Box: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Useless_box.jpg

Dumb Things

This article is inspired by my recent endeavour of building a website for ranking mince pies, which absolutely fits the title definition. I wanted to examine why I felt so driven and energised doing it, and really felt it was important, rather than just accepting it as something I do.

This is far from the first project, some examples:

None of these ideas are trying to be clever. They’re not trying to find some niche that’s never been done before nor try to solve a fundamental problem of the world. Usually the idea comes from one of two places:

  • A catchy title: itwasnotamanual.com was started because the domain was available.
  • A minor personal frustration: OpenFoodDiary was because I just wanted to put numbers in a log without ads or tracking.

This helps treat the endeavour as a pet tinkering project. The stakes are less than nothing, there isn’t an opportunity to exploit or a competitor to try and beat. You just pick up the idea and run with it for as long as it’s interesting.

If you want to start a project like this, don’t sit down and try and brainstorm ideas - instead wander around town. Listen to a nice audiobook or a song. Go for a run or watch your favourite old movie. Get away from distractions and let yourself get bored (categorically stay off of your phone). I can all but promise that thoughts will float to the surface, and when they do, just note them down somehow. And then instead of assessing if they’re “good” ideas, just start creating stuff.

Quickly

Quickly feels like it’d make things worse or add pressure, but it’s incredibly liberating knowing you can just drop the thing when it is “finished” or you’re bored of it. The goal is not how you implement your idea. Don’t worry about doing things the right and proper way. Instead, just pick up tools you either know or are interested in learning, and get to work delivering the idea.

Gamejams are a great example of this style of working. For those that don’t know, a gamejam is where teams and individuals commit to create a videogame within a set timeframe (usually 48-72 hours), with the only restriction being a shared theme. Some good examples are the GMTK Gamejam and Ludlum Dare. Participating in a gamejam is an intense experience, but it removes one of the very hardest parts of a project - knowing when you’re finished. On any creative endeavour you can always do more, always iterate more, always produce more, but sometimes you just gotta ship the thing and hope for the best.

The benefit of this style of thinking is that you can learn from your mistakes, without being burdened by them. There isn’t anything saying you can’t return to a project later - PaceMe is actually a project I’ve revisited 4-5 times now over the years, constantly rewriting in new languages and technical stacks. In our working lives we’re often faced with a mix of the (well intentioned) mistakes of our predecessors, and our own mistakes and assumptions. Don’t turn your pet project into a chore - if you start the project and find yourself losing enthusiasm before you’ve got anything created, just drop it and move to the next idea.

For No Money

This is probably the most important part - you can’t walk in expecting the project to be more than a throwaway curiosity. Money is probably a little reductive and it’d be more accurate to say For No Extrinsic Benefit, but that’s not as catchy. For most of us, we spend 8+ hours a day doing work in order to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. You can love your work for sure - but if there is one thing I’ve learned in my career, it’s that material need is almost caustic to the creative process.

It’s great if your project has a goal, but those goals should also honour the “dumb thing quickly for no money” mantra. Trying to get 10,000 eyeballs on something random by hook or by crook in a weekend sounds fun - coming up with a plan to develop 100 monthly active users sounds boring. Think about the difference between rickrolling and trying to get people to watch a piece of marketing content.

Nothing sucks the passion out of a project quicker than it being extrinsically motivated - and if there is a bigger goal in doing projects like this, it’s nurturing your creative skills. As an aside - No Money isn’t quite the same as Useless. If there is something you want to do that’s useful to you and you think will be a fun pet project, that’s an incredible thing to chase - you might get something you can both use in daily life, and you get to play in a creative space.

Closing: Follow the Fun

To call it back to gamejams, there is a phrase thrown around - “Follow the fun”. When you’re working on your project, you might find something you didn’t expect or plan for is quite fun. In these cases, almost always abandon your plan for that fun thing. It’s practically an exploit in the creative process - working on fun things creates an mad, eccentric feedback loop of more fun. You’ll start thinking of ways to make the fun thing more fun, instead of just how to make the thing.

This also stops the project feeling draining. I’ve written a previous article about creating projects you’ll come back to, and in a lot of ways this is almost the opposite end of the spectrum. Usually when motivation starts to wane on a project like this, make some notes on the current state of it and anything needed to work on it, then put it on a “shelf” and walk away. Either it was a fun enough idea that you’ll come back around to it later with fresh energy, or it has served its purpose and it’s time to move on.

So go get bored and build something silly. You’ll never know where you’ll end up.