Towards the end of last year at work, I was starting to get burned out as we were coming up to Christmas and everything was winding down. I made an early new years resolution to try and stop working on my main work related projects when I’m not actually at work. Like most enthusiastic developers though, it’s hard to take off your coding cape at the end of the day and hang it up until tomorrow. So, I’ve been getting back on with my personal development projects that I’ve had on my project backlog for nearly a year!
One of which is ActivPals which was an idea that popped into my head when I noticed people in our office were moving from the Microsoft Band to the FitBit or other social fitness trackers which allowed friends to compare and challenge each other to push their fitness. One thing that me and my partner, Hannah, do is exercise together, whether it be running or home fitness routines, and we always compare our stats and try to push ourselves to go further. As well as me though, she talks to her work mates and they have similar discussions and one thing that’s come up in those discussions was a lack of the social aspect of the Microsoft Band and it’s Health app. ActivPals hopes to resolve that issue allowing very similar functionality to what you’d get with the Health app but once I’ve integrated with the Health API, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to bring the other major fitness APIs into the app too so you can compare with your friends who have a FitBit and the likes.
Personal projects aren’t just something that give you a break from work, but they are a driver for your technical skills which allow you to explore things that you might not explore in your day-to-day work on projects. You have the freedom to plan, try new technologies and development techniques with the result being a nice new app and you’ve gained some experience that you can bring into future projects in your work! It’s a win-win in all areas and something that I highly recommend you think about, if you don’t do it already.
Keep coding!
