I am professionally a software developer for 8 years and I simply don’t have ideas for personal projects (Can’t find any problem that I can fix with programming). At times I feel like that’s natural and I shouldn’t worry about it. But on the other hand, I do like to imagine having something personal that I can work on so that even if some days on my main job are not satisfying, I can always work on my hobby project and find that missing satisfaction.
End goal here is obviously to get better sleep as sometimes my mind feels dissatisfied with the day’s work.
Funnily, I day-dream about the idea of already having done the boring parts (simply manifesting a project that already exists) of some personal project and only solving exciting problems in relation to adding a new feature or exciting aspects.
This creates a problem as I hate staring at a blank file not knowing what to write.
Plenty of people who work in construction trades do projects at home for their own benefit. They might even go to a workshop and learn about new techniques, materials, and tools.
Plenty of professions have practitioners learn and read on their own time to increase their knowledge and value in the labor market.
It’s not unique to software development. But there is a lower barrier in software development to being able to use one’s free time to work on skills and projects in terms of physical materials and social coordination.