A lot of programmers know the problem that they can’t think of any coding projects.
However, especially for beginner programmers, it is very important to work on some projects to gain essential practice and experience.
Actually, this problem is one of the most common reasons why people stop programming.
Therefore, I hope that I can help you with the 5 strategies to come up with some coding project ideas!
Why are coding projects important?
As I already mentioned, coding projects help you to gain a lot of practice and valuable experience.
Not only will you become a more disciplined person because you’ll have to work on many different projects, but you will also get to know a lot of people who might help you with your projects.
Additionally, you’ll learn some other skills besides coding, for example, graphics design, data science, or game design.
Of course, all those projects won’t just be useful in the first moment but can also help later on when you are applying for a job as a programmer.
What makes a good project?
Before you decide on a project, you should always make sure that you really want to start this project and if you are going to have fun even after a long time working on it. Otherwise, your project will likely fail because you will lose motivation very quickly.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether you’ll enjoy working on the project in the long term:
- Do I learn something new from the project?
- Will I have fun working on the project?
- Does the project serve any purpose?
- Why am I doing this project?
- What do I get out of the project?
Strategy #1: Think of Everyday Problems
The first strategy is to think of problems you encounter every day.
Do you see a problem? Simply find a way to solve it with code!
Let me give you an example of a problem that you may know too well:
You have the problem that you can’t come up with any project ideas. Now you could create a random generator that generates project ideas based on some given categories and other factors that may matter to you.
There you have it. That is a reasonable project idea!
Usually, those types of projects have got a very high potential of being successful if you make them available for anyone who’s got the same problem. However, you should make sure that the problem hasn’t been solved before.
Of course, you can apply this strategy to almost any problem that can be solved with the help of a computer.
Strategy #2: Force Yourself
The second strategy is to force yourself to come up with a specified amount of ideas in a certain period of time.
I suggest that you take yourself around 30 minutes of time to write down at least 50 project ideas. This number seems a little high, considering you can’t even come up with one idea. However, the point of this strategy is to force yourself to come up with as many ideas as possible, even if they are complete nonsense.
At the end of this process, you’ll probably have around 90% of ideas that are absolutely useless. However, the other 10% might actually be very good ideas that never came to your mind before.
Simply give this strategy a shot, and you’ll probably see that it works. And even if it doesn’t, there are still four strategies to go for!
Strategy #3: Ask Others
The third strategy is to ask others about their problems and ideas. As you have some problems, so do others.
Why not ask them what problems they would appreciate being solved?
Maybe you are able to help them while they help you find new coding projects.
If you’re lucky, they even have complete project ideas for you.
In fact, this strategy is one of the most efficient ones for the least amount of effort. That’s why it is absolutely worth giving a shot.
Strategy #4: Look for Things you can Automate
The next strategy is to search for things you can automate.
Usually, every time-consuming process can be automated in some way.
It is not a question of “Can I do this?” but more like “How can I do this?”.
For example:
You hate sorting all your files. Why not create an automatic file sorter that sorts all your files after their creation date?
Of course, this strategy helps you to find coding projects very quickly. However, it also saves you a lot of time if you automate very time-consuming processes.
Strategy #5: Look for things you want to learn
A very important key point of a coding project is the learning factor, isn’t it?
The fifth strategy of this list starts exactly at this point. Simply think of things you want to learn and then think of examples that teach you exactly this one thing.
Additionally, you can combine multiple things you want to learn in one single project. That actually helps find a good project.
Let me give you an example:
I want to learn about socket programming and encryption. One thing that directly comes to my mind is a chat program with text end-to-end encryption.
This strategy is perfect for you if you are especially focused on the learning factor
Wrapping up
Finding coding project ideas isn’t that hard. You just have to use the right strategies.
I am pretty sure that at least one of the strategies listed above will work for you.
However, if you don’t want to think of projects on your own, you can check out this article I wrote about 15 coding project ideas for beginners.
Thanks for reading!
