When creating products, feature creep is the usually slow process by which additional complexity is added. It is not intentional, but it is normal. And it doesn’t stop at your projects, either. It infiltrates your life, creating personal feature creep.
Rather than additional functionality, personal features are usually commitments we’ve made, or ventures we’ve taken on. In fact, that side project with its own feature creep might be contributing to your personal feature creep. As with creating real products, making your life the way you want involves questioning what’s necessary.
Zen Habits has a post on how to fix feature creep in your life, with a four step program:
- Start from a blank slate.
- Only add the features you really use and love.
- Slowly implement the reduction in the code of your life.
- Avoid future feature creep.
The process is similar to one of the two simplicity paths: build up from the core. And, though it’s twice the number of steps, my fix feature creep post can also be turned toward your own life. For example, “research before committing” is probably a good way to avoid finding yourself with responsibilities you don’t want.
The full Zen Habits post is worth a read, as it provides practical advice for each of the four steps.
Hat tip: Valerie Yakich
Good insights and thanks for sharing those links. I’m affected a little by personal feature creep in the number of projects I take on.
Since I’ve started blogging about my projects, I find that I can allow myself to easily put some projects on hold by using leaving a post in “draft” state. I free up some personal memory and compute cycles, but leave the project to be revisited later.