I’ve always had plenty of side projects. And I love it! These side project give me a heady mix of distraction, input, creative outlet and opportunity to learn that’s essential to the way my brain works.
That said, I’ve amassed a few too many over time. So earlier this year I started slashing extra curriculars. By now, I’ve stepped down from most juries I was kindly invited to, shut down some projects, and handed over others that still have places to go, am in the process of handing over the reins for another one. The most recent one was wrapping up Zephyr Berlin.
All this in order to cut down on the mental load of maintaining projects, and to honor them through closure.1
In 2021, I expect I’ll be tackling a whole range of new projects, some of which will require significant time investments — and a fresh and rested mind. The Special Projects membership and a related writing project comes to mind, as do the Seasons I’m plotting with Patrick. I’m sure there will be others as well.
So, onwards with a clean slate!
- Something Joe Macleod’s talk at Interaction16 about closure experiences made me aware of is how often there’s no closure but only a fading away.
