Visakan Veerasamy in @visakanv's 50yr "plan" for global nerd network [wip] suggests 100 public attempts as a way of seeding collaboration with like minded creators, building an audience of true fans, and failing quickly in the direction of success.
I've got a few ideas for some projects that I'd like to share and I hope you will join me in coming up with more.
Also, if you start any of these projects, we'd love to hear about it.
An app to track your progress is Do 100 Things
The structure of so far, of this project is a single page, with organized by topic lists of inspiration for your projects. Each of the topics will, link to a Simon Willison's Datasette (https://datasette.io/ https://github.com/simonw/datasette) of locations of your versions of the project, for completeness, and eventually, show a random example of the last attempt of some of the projects.
The initial list.
It's ok to start with something really easy. I recommend it over something even slightly hard, because 100s aren't about how hard the individual task are, but about building a habit of creating regularly to explore a theme or motive. We all learn through repetition, and no matter what you start with, the result will be interesting in aggregate. One hundred attempts at anything is interesting.
One hundred attempts is, in statistical terms, a big sample. That is, you'll know something real, about how the world of that sort of activity is for you, once you're done.
If you talk to one hundred prospective employers, you will know more about how you fit into your reachable job market than the vast majority of employed people. If you think of interviews as just another one in a series, rather than risking your self-worth, you will learn more, they will go better and you will get far more opportunities.
- 100 sweater designs
- 100 drawings in pencil
- 100 drawings in watercolor
- 100 photographs of something you see everyday
- 100 pages of writing whatever comes to mind
- 100 flash fiction stories
- 100 drawings from a prompt
- 100 performance art works, photographed or recorded.
- 100 photographs of the dawn or sunset
- 100 self portraits
- 100 tweets
- 100 blog posts
- 100 letters to a friend
- 100 letters to a family member
- 100 job applications
- 100 expressions of gratitude
- 100 conversations with a part of yourself
- 100 documentation contributions to open source projects
- 100 tutorials about something you just learned
- 100 book reviews
- 100 articles about a topic you're interested in
- 100 write to learn
- 100 sentences; revised to express exactly what you mean
- 100 recommendations for a project you want others to know about
- 100 questions about the world or yourself
- 100 Write a detailed product description of...
Volume is more important than quality. You'll learn as you go. When you look back you'll see improvement and that will remind you of your learning over time.
Don't compare your beginning with someone else's final result. You haven't seen what they did in the beginning, because it's rarely shown. But asking for advice on how you can improve, is a great way to find collaborators and partners and even friends.
Category suggestions.
DB for project examples
Pull requests welcome! See the Contributing Guide for how to do a pull request and licensing.