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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Side Projects

"Right thoughts, right words," Right Action by Franz Ferdinand.

So side projects. I have come to discover that having side projects is the most important thing in the world. Okay, not the most important thing in the world. But it's pretty damn important in order for one to stay productive.

You can't really just focus all your efforts doing just one thing forever. You'll get bored. And if you don't have any side projects going on, you'll be wasting your time being bored and not doing anything about it. And that ain't coooool, innit?

Thing is, I sometimes feel like I like doing so many distinct things, and the interest in each thing comes and goes in phases. And this sort of confuses me. It makes me wonder "what am I actually supposed to be doing?" and now I've come to realise that the answer is "all of them".

We all have passions, and some of us (me included) have more than one. A mistake people usually make (me included) is to just choose one passion and discard the rest. I now realise that doing that is a mistake. I can't discard any of my passions, because they are what make me, me. I don;t have to choose between my passions because those choices have already been made. I like doing certain things (writing, music, rugby) and dislike doing certain things (playing football, eating petai, playing football) and that's perfectly fine. All that's left for me to do is to do something with my inclinations. I can't worry about unity from passion to passion, inclination to inclination, piece to piece - because what unifies all of it is the fact they all come from inside me (and from above lah ofkos). I have to trust that one day when I look back upon all of this, it'll all make sense.

Let's look at a couple of my peers. MatLuthfi, his main thing (currently) is getting his Masters degree. And he's definitely an awesome enough graduate, he could even get his PhD before he's 30. His side projects are his videos. And they're mind-blowingly good. I'm sure he has some other side-projects going on too. And they should be mind-blowingly good too.

Aiman Azlan. God, he's such a hardworking guy. He makes videos regularly. He's in the process of writing a book (which a lot of us are waiting for in full anticipation). He writes regularly for langitilahi.com as well as for his own blog. He shares so many useful stuff on his FB page and twitter (@aimanazlan90). I'm sure when he comes back to Malaysia, he'll be going around the country sharing uber-useful and inspirational thoughts with anyone and everyone.

Having multiple projects going on at once is definitely helpful because we can bounce between them. Once we get sick of one project, we can always move on to the other one, then when we get sick of that one, go back to the first one. This way, we'll keep ourselves occupied and interested.

This post was inspired by the book "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon. He says things a lot more eloquently and concisely than I do, so i recommend the book to everyone who wants to be more creative and productive in their work, whatever their work may be.

(Re-reading this post, all I can say is "berteraboq!")

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

5 comments:

Luqeem™ said...

kihkihkih, nice.

everyone has a mixed passion and some of them like to them all. just like me.

the bad side of it is, you do them all but you do it bit by bit and eventually you never finish or mastered them. haha

well side project can be a good thing.

Gen said...

I can sooo agree to this! i do have mixed passion too, between reading, writing, singing(alone, of course), photoshop-ing and plenty more. Being someone whos easily bored is what i am.

These things do come when I'm bored. The perks of having these things is that sometimes it helps a lot when it comes to your real course/job.

Having hobbies are good. But I think the best hobbies are those that will help you back. Skills don't come easy right?

aaand that's why i love internet. ahahaha

Ahmad Zahid said...

Thanks abg Hadi. It is goog to read this in the aerly morning. Now, I have some side projects other than studies engineering. One of the is writing short stories. Give me a hope abang Hadi. Haha.

Here my short stories writting begin:

korneaahmad.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Salam Bro..

Just nak tanya pendapatlah kan... Macam mane nak jadi sorg "vlogger" yang tak malu bila dok nak rakam video sendiri... Hehehe lagi satu hang pakai apps ape untuk edit video... Sebab aku blogger dan tetibe minat yang sgt mendalam dok dtg nak bervlogger neh... mintak tunjuk ajaq tips sikit...

TQ bro Salam Aidiladha...

Anonymous said...

Side projects are great but then prioritising tasks can be an issue later. Agree?

p/s: bring back your short stories!! I enjoyed reading them :) Or are they called sketch stories?

- Joy Lipao