3 Common Pitfalls Makers With Day Jobs Fall Into (And How To Overcome Them And Build More)
Making things is an incredible superpower that most people wish they could achieve, but there is a problem: we’re all busy all the time.
A vast majority of Makers, myself included, have demanding full-time jobs that only leave evenings and weekends for family, friends, Making things, and occasionally sleep. We’re constantly pulled in opposing directions causing our attention to fragment, leaving us with precious little time to hone our skills as Makers. When we finally do find time, we’re often exhausted and creatively drained, leading to more time on the couch in front of Netflix wondering why the projects on our workbench are collecting dust.
Fortunately, there are 3 Pitfalls Makers with full-time jobs usually fall into that we can overcome together and get more projects done.
Pitfall 1: Productive Procrastination
With such limited time, when we finally do get time in our workspace we try hard to be productive, but it doesn’t always happen.
Have you ever finally gotten into your shop for a few minutes late one night intending to make progress on your project, but when you leave, nothing has been accomplished? You likely went into your garage, saw some tools you didn’t need for the next step, and decided to put them away (which led to putting some material away, then not being able to find something, then organizing a drawer, etc). It’s great to keep a clean and tidy workshop, but when you only have a few minutes, cleaning becomes a “productive” way to procrastinate making actual progress.
Next time you know you only have a few minutes, before going to your workshop, note the next thing you need to do on your project and do that immediately when you enter instead of getting “productively” distracted.
Pitfall 2: Analysis Paralysis
As Makers, we love to learn new techniques that will make our projects better, but when taken too far, that can leave unfinished projects collecting sawdust.
Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. You’re not completely sure how to put two components together the “best” way, so you turn to YouTube and watch video after video trying to learn. You want to be 100% sure before committing, but that leads to hours wasted on your phone, rather than making meaningful progress on your project.
Remember that you’ll learn far more by taking action after watching 1 video than watching 10 videos and just thinking about it.
Pitfall 3: Focusing Only On The End-Goal
Makers have large ideas that can encompass multiple projects, but too much focus on what the end will look like smothers progress now.
My big project is a Star Wars home office and I have had 3 separate project ideas for it that I have thought of just about every day for over a year. The problem is, I haven’t started on any of them (which my wife deserves a medal for her patience with me). My focus has been solely on what the home office will ultimately look like, which takes up the time that I should be putting into actually doing the projects themselves.
Once you have an idea of what the end-goal is, stop focusing only on the end and back into the actions you can take today to make the project(s) a reality.
The biggest key is to choose action on your project rather than anything else.
As our attention and time are pulled toward our career, family, friends, and sometimes Making things, it’s imperative to continuously take action on our projects so we can be done and move on to the next one. Keep the momentum of the project up by doing something, anything, every time you get a chance. The action can be as small as gluing 2 pieces together or as large as painting the entire thing.
Some progress every day is better than none, so spend a little time and do at least 1 small thing on your project every day and you’ll be finished before you know it.
