This is going to sound like a ridiculous question, but how do you all find both the time and the interest to work on side projects for your portfolio / GitHub? I always seem to start strong, get burned out, and can never find the inspiration to break away from the 9-5 of my day role to work on coding something else... Where do you find ideas? Designs? Concepts? Interesting solutions? I'm in desperate need of building some GitHub repos for my portfolio... 😅😰

There are two kinds of portfolio building/things that go up on github

1. The "I need this for my next job" kind - treat this like a job. This is necessary stuff that'll get you where you want to go.

2. The "I'm just playing with this for fun...oh look, that was cool" kind - this is a hobby, don't try to force it. If you don't have energy, don't do it. Coding is not everything.

These aren't independent and there are definitely ways to mix the two, but yeah.

@RememberMe this is a good distinction!

I don't.

Seriously, while it can't *hurt* to throw up this stuff on GitHub, I always feel people really overestimate its importance in applying for jobs. Very few companies looking for people will have the time to look at a bunch of GitHub repos; it'll be based on the experience you claim on your CV instead.

If you want to do it then go ahead, but bear in mind the time to benefit ratio is low.

@RememberMe I would add a third type and even a fourth, although your role could be limited to being a regular contributor/ maintainer for these:

3. The "I really believe in this, want to help improve it and am somewhat involved in the community" project
4. The "I used this at work and developed a plugin/ fork to handle extra use-cases" project, and create issues & PR's to give back.

Even just a few stars/ interactions with GH users means a tenfold of that have found your project useful.

@RememberMe Agreed 👍

At first my repos were cool little fun side projects with no real goal.

Now they're reflecting what I've learned to be "best practice". Implementing little by little, what I'm learning through tutorials and code camps.

It's a long way from "getting me a job"and that's okay, because I know it's a long journey and I'm learning LOTS!!!

Easy, I don't code during my free time.

The only coding I do outside of work is for hobby projects and fun things. I haven't bothered to fill my GitHub profile with projects to impress employers. Most of them don't look and those who do probably won't understand.