Professional Development
Side-Projects card, MethodKit for Professional Development
Card 50 of 66 · MethodKit for Professional Development
  • ThemeWork & Environment
  • CardCard 50 of 66
  • Questions5 to explore
Work & Environment

Side-Projects

Projects aside from your main job

The work you do outside your main job is often where you find out what you actually want to be doing.

Side projects take many forms: a freelance client, a personal creative practice, an open-source contribution, a community role, a business you are slowly building in your spare hours. What they share is that you chose them for reasons other than the salary attached to them, which makes them a useful window into what genuinely interests you.

They also serve practical purposes. A side project can be a testing ground for skills you want to develop, a way to build a body of work in a new area before you commit to it fully, or a source of income that makes a riskier main-job move possible. The relationship between side work and main work is rarely just supplementary.

The risk, of course, is spread. Too many side projects and none of them get the attention they need. The question is not whether to have them but which ones are worth protecting.

How to work on it

Practical ways to reflect on and develop this dimension of your working life. How it tends to look at different stages of a career, and where to put your attention.

Early career

Use side projects to explore directions your main job does not cover. Think of them as a low-stakes laboratory where failure is informative rather than costly.

Mid career

Be deliberate about which side projects you keep. Not everything that starts interesting stays interesting. The ones that are still alive after a year or two deserve serious attention.

Later career

Side projects can become the main project. If something you have been building on the side has grown into something significant, ask yourself honestly what it would take to make that the centre.

At any stage

Protect the time, even if it is small. A side project that gets an hour a week consistently will outlast one that gets a full weekend every few months.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. What side projects do you currently have, and why are you doing them?

  2. What does your side work tell you about what you actually want to do more of?

  3. How do you balance side projects with your main work and the rest of your life?

  4. Has a side project ever led somewhere significant for you? What made that happen?

  5. Is there something you keep meaning to start on the side but have not? What is stopping you?

Things to notice

  • Starting more side projects than you can sustain is a very common trap. Having five half-alive projects is usually less valuable than having one that is genuinely alive.
  • If every side project is about earning extra income, you may be missing what they are also good for: trying things out, developing skills, following genuine curiosity.
  • Side projects can become a way of avoiding commitment to anything. At some point, the most honest move is to pick one and go properly.