Sick Projects

When the world was collectively sick in 2020, I learned and engineered electronics that could control my muscles.

When I first got covid in 2022, I learned basic html and propped up WeAreHereTomorrow.com to house my defunt podcast and blog.

When I again got covid in 2025 (last week), I manually made blogging features in my website. (I'm posting this through that blog feature!) When vacation ended, I worked one day from home (rare!) and completed a huge refactoring of an extremely-active file from start to finish.

Sure, being sick frees up time.

And it makes life feel shorter.

And makes me value memories and want to make more.

But! I wonder if these completed projects have another fun realization: the work intensity goldilocks zone.

These "Sick Projects" differ notably from my typical projects!

My typical projects are:

  1. more challenging

  2. longer

  3. more uncertain with more reward

    • Err-- potential reward, since they're also mostly incomplete

When I'm sick, my body doesn't have that energy and metal flexibility. So I tend to turn down the intensity in all ways:

  1. a few days or less

  2. fairly straight forward work

  3. modest payoff

Why not turn down the intensity to zero? Well, for one, I don't love passive scrolling or watching or similar. Also, ~zero intensity sounds like a recipe for wallowing in my sick discomfort and malaise!

Intensity well above zero, but below the standard ambition leaves us in a work intensity goldilocks zone!

If most of my typical projects are incomplete, and all of my sick projects are done and make me memory dividends, maybe I need to try turning down my default project intensity!

Maybe I've been in the gym failing 600 pound deadlifts for years.

Time to take off 100s of pounds, bite off smaller, simpler projects, and gradually get stronger at projects generally!

Maybe you too? Try it out with me!