[Go Make Things] Gardening and the endless task list

Thursday, May 15, 2025

With spring in full bloom, gardening season has officially returned here in the American northeast.

(This is about web development. I promise!)

The garden (a real one, not a digital one)

After a winter stuck inside, and a wet and cold early spring, the sunshine and outdoor time has dramatically improved my mood.

But the number of tasks on my gardening todo list is massive and overwhelming!

Come mid-season, I'll have a small number of peaceful daily tasks that let me enjoy some quiet time among birds, small furry creatures, and various pollinators. But right now I need to do all-the-things to get ready for the season…

Removing all of the leaves I left for animals to over-winter in.
Getting rid of the fallen acorns so trees don't grow in places that would be harmful to my home.
Removing dead growth and pruning so that plants can devote energy to new growth.
Dethatching the turf to keep it from dying off.
Overseeding wildflower mix in the areas I'm rewilding.
Relocating fallen sticks and tree limbs to our enchanted garden so they can become homes for various creatures.
And on, and on, and on…

Early-stage web development projects feel a lot like this!

The greenfield project

I sometimes find myself staring a project brief wondering where to start or how I'll ever get things done.

And then I remember my garden.

This is going to sound a bit hand-wavy, but the trick is, frankly, to start with the first thing, and just go from there! A little at a time, day-after-day. It adds up!

With my garden, I can't dethatch or pick-up acorns or sticks until I've removed the leaves, I start there. I can't overseed until I remove the sticks and leaves or mow the existing growth down low, so I do that next. Pruning is less important, so I put that off until later.

Web projects work like that, too.

I can't display content on this page until I have data from the API, so I prioritize writing a function to get that data and transform it first. Then I create templates for rendering it into the UI. Making it pretty is nice, but not as essential, so I save that for later.

One step at a time.

Knowing what the steps are

I've found that one of the bigger challenges with large projects is often just knowing where to start.

For me, the first thing I do on any new project is pull out a notebook and plan on paper.

I sketch out the UI. Then I draw lines off various UI elements and make notes about the types of backend APIs and JavaScript interactions I'll need to power them.

After I do that, the first task usually becomes pretty obvious.

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Cheers,
Chris

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