Anti*: those things left undone

Posted 4 hours ago

Last week, I read Jim Nielsen’s, Anti-*: The Things We Do But Not All The Way. The article deals with those things that we have intention to do but don’t follow through or things started but not finished. He preceded to list out some of his “antis” and it got me thinking about my antis.

Antilibrary

I start here because this is probably my biggest one. I love books. I love to read. I am usually reading a lot of different books at once. And then I will see someone recommend a book or see that a new book has been released. I am interested in the book so I buy it. Many of those get set aside because I already have many books in process and want to finish some of them before starting another. And then I might lose interest in the newer book. Or it has sat so long that newer books come along and grab my attention.

I also buy a lot of Kindle books when they are on sale. It might not even have been a subject I was thinking about. But it sounds interesting and it is only a couple of bucks. So I accumulate more and more books that I have every intention of reading but never get to.

And then there are some books that just are not as good as I thought they would be. Or I realize I am just not as interested in the subject as opposed to something else I already own or want to buy. It is hard for me to let go and not finish a book. But if I don’t, then it will take up the time that I could have used to read something that was better written or that I was more interested in.

Oh, and then there are the occasional e-books that I get for free and accumulate.

A survey of the Kindle books that I have bought this year reveals:

  • I bought 15 books
  • I started reading 9 of those books
  • I finished reading 5 of them
  • I am still actively reading 2 of them
  • 6 of them I have not touched (1 was a book I read the year before that I borrowed from a friend and wanted to have my own copy and it was only $2)

Antiwebsites

I have built several websites that never launched. Though I feel like I have had fewer of these projects than other developers (I only count five projects over a 25 year timespan).

One of the few projects I built that never launched

One of the biggest disappointments of projects that never launched was a redesign for Saveur magazine that I worked on between April and August 2012. I really enjoyed that project and had a lot of creative freedom to prototype and suggest some better solutions as the project evolved. I also enjoyed working with the backend developer and the product owner. It was the first big project that I used Sass on and I tried to incorporate some ideas from OOCSS into the project to minimize the amount of CSS I wrote.

Just short of launch, the larger publisher pulled the plug on it. At the time, I was very disappointed and upset but with some hindsight, I better understand the decision and it was probably the right one to make.

Antiposts

I have a lot of ideas for posts that never materialize. Some of them, I actually started writing. Others never came to fruition.

One of the ideas that never came to light was a series I would have entitled, Am I a Man or Am I a Muppet? I would have covered over six years of my life where I struggled to decide if I was a designer or developer. The first part would have been about my struggle about wanting to be a designer and developer. The second part would have focused on my embracing the front-end developer role around the beginning of 2012. And then a third part would have been written years later around 2016 when I struggled with the redefining of front-end developer with the rise of frameworks like React. I have toyed with the idea of still writing those posts but I know they would not be as powerful as if I had written them while I was experiencing that angst.

Last year, I had an idea for a post called Death of a Webcraftsman. It came out of the frustration and questions I had about my future in web development. I was unemployed and was having trouble even getting interviews. I questioned whether I was still relevant. And yet I was still very passionate and loved the work of building websites. I have not given up on the idea of writing this post. I have an Obsidian file where I downloaded a lot of thoughts from my head. I am sure it would have been more powerful if I had written it last year but it was too painful to write while I was in the midst of it.

Anticourses or Antilearning

I bought so many books in the past to learn different web development skills and either never touched them or only got a couple of chapters into it. I sometimes get depressed thinking about all the things I didn’t learn and was not able to add to my skillset. I was so excited about so many of those things like learning how to build data-driven websites with PHP in Dreamweaver.

I have done the same thing with video courses over the past 10 years. So many subjects I was excited about at the time that never were finished.

I have several courses I have bought and some free ones in my queue. I would really like to finish one course to prove that I can do it.

One thing that I have learned about myself is that I learned better from going through books rather than self-paced courses. Books usually are focused on smaller chunks of learning that I was able to stick with longer. I struggle with self-paced course because I will put them down and lose traction. I restarted The Joy of React because I felt like there was so much I forgot because I put it down and was not continuing to use it.

I have also found that the courses I have had the most success with were ones were I could find practical applications right away in my work. Just build websites. It is the best way to get things to stick–by building your own personal project or making application in your work projects.

* It is important to note that my failure to complete these courses should no way reflect on the teachers. Each of these teachers is great and they do a great job of teaching the content. I would recommend all of them. I just want to be clear on that.

Antimodels

During my childhoods, plastic models, specifically airplane models, were the things that I would collect and either not build or never finish. I had a model of the space shuttle that included the external tank and booster rockets. I don’t think I ever finished that one. I know there were several airplane models that I never even started. I think my dad built several of them years later after I left home.

Antiideas

I have way too many ideas for things that I could create or build that I never pursue. That is just the nature of who I am and I realized that I would not have the time to chase after every good idea I had. I have not been a big one on personal web side projects. The few that I have had, I have been able to follow through and build. I did have an idea to create my own personal memory keeper (think Facebook memories). I held onto that idea for many years. But I finally did something about it earlier this year. It is an ongoing project as I manually add memories each day (mostly from my Facebook memory feed).

If I feel strongly enough about a creative project, I usually will follow through. One of my chief motivations is to realize concepts. I get a lot of fulfillment out of bringing an idea into reality. But there have been some that fell by the wayside. I am sure ever creative can relate. Not all ideas are worth pursuing. And not all ideas spark joy like the ones that really grab hold of you and you “have” to make happen.

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