Most people probably don’t need to work on side projects and are perfectly happy with the everyday work. 9-5 could pay the bills, cover vacations, earn some savings for investments. But, some people like adventure and the modern wrapping of it -is try and experiment with ideas. There are many advantages about exploring side projects that I’m gonna point out here.
Getting up to date
When you see the magic behind new tool that has appeared on the market – you could potentially become magician yourself. Learning many things expands your horizons and choices – in work, business and life in general.
Learn what is in demand on the market and you could actually rise the amount of money you collect at the end of the day. You could change your job to more interesting one. The corporate job pays your expenses. But, focusing too much on it – will put you in a rat race that rarely creates happiness by itself.
Experiment first hand new Technologies.
Side projects force you to stay up to date with the latest stuff in a field of work or interest. While the business requires getting things done and complete, side projects offer exploration of the gray area of the individual knowledge. The side projects may fail without fatal consequences and that freedom lets you experiment.
Verify or Reject the magical words about frameworks, libraries and stacks.
Some of the technologies are marketed with too much magic dust in your eyes. When you get your hands dirty with it, you could actually see for yourself – what is true and what is not. Many times the new is the forgotten old. Check out how much libraries compile to JavaScript, when I did that 13 years ago with GWT.
The Real Confidence about anything comes from personal experience.
You create confidence with personal experience and with a lot of practice. There is no other way around that.
Actually being able to implement Cool Ideas in your own side projects
When you become expert with some skill, you could implement yourself the ideas that you have in mind or that are searched on the market. And when you implement them yourself, they are yours in a legal term. This is how you raise beyond the 9 to 5.
Integration of code with stuff outside of code.
When you have a job, you focus on polishing the technical details of your area. With side projects you have freedom to intermingle a technology with something outside of it beyond what is required for business. That is the real benefit of anything. Nothing is worthwhile while it lives alone and for itself.