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The Side Project Graveyard (And Why It's Fine)

2 min read

I have a folder on my machine called projects. Inside it are roughly 30 directories. Maybe 5 of them have ever been deployed. Maybe 3 of them still work.

The rest? Dead. Abandoned. Half-finished ideas that burned bright for a weekend and then faded when Monday hit.

The Graveyard Tour

Let me walk you through some of the headstones:

  • recipe-tracker — A meal planning app I built because I was tired of eating the same three things. Turns out, I didn't want to plan meals. I wanted someone else to plan them for me.

  • tweet-scheduler — Before I realized I don't tweet enough to need a scheduler.

  • budget-app-v3 — Yes, v3. All three versions taught me something. None of them taught me to budget.

  • cli-pomodoro — A terminal-based Pomodoro timer. Actually worked great. I just... stopped using it.

  • portfolio-v1, v2, v3 — You already know how this story ends.

Why It's Actually Fine

Here's the thing about unfinished projects: they're not wasted time.

Every one of those abandoned repos taught me something. The recipe tracker taught me database schema design. The tweet scheduler taught me OAuth flows. The budget apps taught me that I'll never enjoy tracking expenses (but also taught me React state management).

The skills don't disappear when the project dies. They accumulate.

The Real Skill

The real skill isn't finishing every project. It's knowing which projects to finish.

Some ideas deserve your full commitment. Some ideas are just learning vehicles in disguise. And that's completely fine.

So if you have your own project graveyard — don't feel bad about it. Feel proud. Each one is proof that you tried something, learned something, and had the wisdom to move on.

The graveyard isn't a cemetery. It's a garden.

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