Let’s be honest: most side projects don’t amount to much. They start with a spark — a clever idea, a whimsical “what if,” a sudden surge of motivation — and end, quietly, in a forgotten folder or dusty notebook. They rarely earn money. They rarely go viral. Many don’t even get finished.
But that doesn’t mean they’re useless. In fact, the power of a side project often has nothing to do with how far it goes — and everything to do with where it takes your brain while it exists.
Side projects, in all their strange, scrappy, and half-baked glory, are more than just creative outlets. They’re mental laboratories — private, pressure-free spaces where ideas can stretch out, test themselves, and mutate into something unexpectedly useful later on.
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What Counts as a Side Project?
A side project is any self-directed activity you work on outside your main obligations. It could be a novel, a coding experiment, a visual art challenge, a new podcast, a series of essays, or an obsessive spreadsheet about 18th-century furniture trends. It doesn’t have to make money, build an audience, or be “productive” by external standards.
The only real requirement is that you’re doing it because you want to — not because you have to. That difference changes everything.
The Value of Autonomy
Most of the work we do in life is shaped by external constraints: deadlines, client needs, market expectations, institutional norms. Even in relatively creative jobs, there are boundaries. You work toward goals that exist outside of yourself.
A side project flips that script. Suddenly, you’re in charge of the brief. The stakes are low. The risk is minimal. And the freedom is massive. You get to follow weird hunches. You get to try something completely unproven. You get to tinker, riff, play — all without someone asking for a deliverable.
This autonomy doesn’t just feel good. It helps your brain think differently. Research on motivation shows that people are more likely to enter a state of flow — deep, focused engagement — when they’re working under conditions of intrinsic interest rather than external reward.
That means your Saturday morning zine about urban pigeons might do more for your creativity than an entire week of formal brainstorming sessions at work.
Abandoned Projects Still Matter
Here’s where it gets weirdly comforting: even the projects that fizzle out still offer value. Maybe especially those.
Why? Because the mental effort you put into a side project doesn’t vanish when the project stops. The skills you practiced, the questions you explored, the connections you made — they stick around. Often, they resurface later in unexpected ways.
That blog you started three years ago and gave up on after six posts? It might have taught you how to articulate ideas more clearly. That failed board game prototype? It might be why you’re suddenly great at breaking complex systems into understandable parts.
Think of side projects as compost. Even if they don’t bloom into something publishable or profitable, they feed the intellectual soil. They enrich the mental ecosystem that your future ideas will grow from.
The Brain Loves Cross-Pollination
One of the most powerful effects of side projects is how they introduce cross-disciplinary thinking. Working on something outside your usual domain forces your brain to draw from different toolkits — to connect dots that aren’t normally on the same page.
A software engineer who starts drawing comics might learn to express abstract ideas more visually. A lawyer who takes up improv might become a better listener. A history buff who builds a mobile app might develop sharper pattern recognition.
These seemingly disconnected pursuits don’t stay disconnected for long. They bleed into your main work. They influence your thinking. They give you creative range — the ability to shift mental modes and apply surprising insights to familiar problems.
In this way, side projects act as a kind of mental cross-training. You’re not just making something — you’re becoming someone who sees more possibilities in more directions.
The Playground Effect
There’s a reason why many of the world’s most interesting thinkers, artists, and inventors had a habit of dabbling in unrelated fields. Side projects offer what some call “playground space” — a mental environment with low stakes and high freedom. It’s where ideas can go off-leash.
Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist, once credited his return to serious physics to a silly little experiment he did with spinning plates in a cafeteria. It had nothing to do with his main work. But it got him thinking again. It gave him joy. It reminded him that science could be fun.
We often forget how powerful joy is in the creative process. When you’re playing with an idea — instead of grinding away at it — the brain relaxes. And relaxed brains are fertile ground for breakthroughs.
Side Projects and Identity
There’s another, deeper benefit to side projects: they help you shape your sense of self. When you choose to spend time on something no one asked you to do, you’re asserting a kind of quiet independence. You’re saying, “This interests me. That’s enough.”
Over time, those choices build identity. You become someone who experiments. Someone who creates. Someone who follows curiosity, even when it doesn’t pay off.
And ironically, that identity can lead to more tangible outcomes than carefully planned career moves. Many people’s most successful ventures started as side projects — not because they were strategic, but because they were alive. They had energy. They had momentum. And eventually, they had impact.
When to Let a Side Project Go
Of course, not every side project is meant to last. Some ideas are meant to be short sprints. Others are just mental sketches — rough drafts of thoughts that may never get inked. And that’s okay.
Knowing when to let a project go is part of the process. The goal isn’t to finish everything. The goal is to stay in motion — to keep following the threads that interest you, without the weight of perfectionism or performance anxiety.
When you think of side projects as experiments rather than investments, it becomes easier to move on without guilt. You didn’t fail. You just learned something. You built a neural path that might come in handy later.
How to Start a Side Project That Sparks You
If you’re feeling the itch to create something, start small. Here are a few ways to begin without overwhelming yourself:
- Follow your curiosity, not your credentials. Pick something that fascinates you, even if you know nothing about it.
- Give yourself permission to fail privately. Not everything needs to be public. In fact, the freedom of obscurity is often a gift.
- Set playful constraints. Try “write one paragraph a day” or “make something weird in 20 minutes.” Constraints can kickstart creativity.
- Let go of ROI thinking. Not everything needs to lead to something else. The point is the process, not the product.
- Document as you go. Even abandoned projects can leave useful traces. Keep notes, sketches, fragments — they’re part of your creative archive.
The key is to start. Not perfectly. Not permanently. Just enough to see where your mind wants to go when no one’s telling it where to be.
Conclusion: The Detour That Builds the Road
Side projects may seem like distractions from your “real” work. But often, they’re where your best thinking begins. They sharpen your instincts. They stretch your mind. They remind you that not all value can be measured in outcomes.
Even if they go nowhere, they still get you somewhere — to a new idea, a new skill, or a new way of thinking that might not have emerged otherwise.
So if you’ve got a half-formed idea you’ve been meaning to tinker with — this is your invitation. Build the thing. Sketch the concept. Write the first line. Then see what happens when you let the detour lead.
This piece is part of our Mental Detours trail — a winding path through half-ideas, playful thought, and unexpected clarity.
