The gap between starting and shipping

Personal projects come with a particular challenge: the person deciding what’s in scope can also expand it at any time. Without a deadline, one more improvement can easily take priority over deciding that the project is ready to go live.

I recognize this pattern in my own work. I can spend so much energy on a detail that barely affects the result that I have little left for finishing the rest. There’s real effort and progress, but it doesn’t always lead to something anyone gets to use.

A deadline helps me set priorities and finish. With personal projects, I have to set those limits myself, and I can always find something else to do before publishing.

I thought AI would help close that gap. Building became much faster, along with exploring alternatives and testing ideas. Yet I wasn’t shipping much more often. That made me look more closely at the decisions I kept putting off, even as the work of building became easier.

When moving on becomes easy

Working faster means discovering an idea’s strengths and limitations sooner. That helps you decide whether to keep going. It also makes it easier to drop an idea and move straight on to the next one.

For me, that became a recurring pattern. I would explore an idea, find a reason to abandon it, and already be working on something else. I could build more than before, but much of that capacity was going toward starting over.

It’s hard to assess that process while you’re caught up in it. There’s always something underway, something new to try, another possibility that looks more promising than the last. It keeps you busy, even when very few projects make it out into the world.

This was already part of how I worked. AI accelerated it. Following a new idea became easier than deciding what to do with the current one.

When every idea has to become a product

The search for ideas also began taking up too much space outside the projects themselves. I would look at everyday situations and wonder what I could build around them. A frustration, a conversation, an ordinary activity would quickly turn into a possible product.

I enjoy thinking this way. Imagining what could exist and finding ways to build it is a large part of what draws me to programming. The trouble started when I began expecting every idea to have the potential to become something other people would use or buy.

Before I had even tried anything, I was already deciding whether it was worth building. I was looking for ideas constantly, while feeling as though I had none.

A few months ago, I began easing that pressure. Giving an idea some room before deciding what it might become. Building out of curiosity, without needing to justify all the time and effort involved. Gradually, ideas started coming more naturally again.

I also had to reconsider the pace. Personal projects take up time I want to enjoy. When every experiment is expected to become a product, even curiosity starts to come with an obligation to deliver.

Letting a small idea stay small

The first personal project I put online was Aviões, a plane counter. It grew out of an inside joke between my girlfriend and me, and we still use it today.

There was a concrete reason to build it, without the pressure of finding a product to sell. The project became part of something we already enjoyed together.

I found it telling that, among all the ideas I had evaluated for their potential, one of the simplest was the one that actually got used. It made sense to two people, and that was enough to keep going.

That experience has shaped how I want to approach future projects: keep the scope smaller, do less polishing before publishing, and work at a pace that leaves me interested in continuing. I still care about the details, but some improvements can wait until something is live.

Publishing this portfolio is part of that process. After earlier attempts that never made it online, I want a place to bring my projects together and write about what I’ve been thinking.

I still have unfinished projects, and I still get caught up in details. Making things easier to build hasn’t removed that difficulty. For now, accepting that an idea can stay small has helped me carry it far enough to become part of someone’s life, even if that someone is just me.