Personally, I’m not a fan of needles, so I haven’t even considered getting a tattoo. If I were so inclined though, I’d listen to a piece of advice that I read somewhere on the internet a while ago. I can’t remember it word for word, but it went something like this:

If you’re thinking about getting a tattoo, take a picture of it and hang it in your bathroom. If in a year, you’re still inclined to get the tattoo, then go ahead and do it.

This advice mirrors very well to all the different side projects that I have brewing in my mind. When I come up with some “brilliant” idea that I want to work on, I’ll use some low overhead method to make sure I’ll still be interested in the future  before writing any code. If after a week or so, I’m still excited about the project, then I’ll go ahead and get more advanced.

This worked really well for my relatively new homebrewing hobby. With significant overhead in equipment, I wanted to make sure that this wouldn’t be a one and done hobby (and it wasn’t!).

The time frame of consideration isn’t important, but it’s key to just make sure that you’ll still be interested in it months down the line.