What for are Personal Projects

Last 2 weeks I've been applying for jobs on Linkedin, with a close to zero result. It's the time I've lost forever, because those job postings are forgotten, some was filled with right candidates. But recruiter will never reopen and write to me a message that they were looking exactly for me. If I would spent this time for a personal project, it's probably could be pretty good animation. Maybe also with a zero result of finding a job, but It could be relevant for several months or even years. Plus it raises my level by learning something new.

I didn't think about it seriously but, the main problem when you try to reach someone for a job is that nothing really known about you. A portfolio, interview, test task. OK, it may be enough in some cases. But what if you fail with the interview or test task, because you haven't had time to put everything you would like it to be. With the personal project you reveal own PERSONALITY. And if you show something that's interesting and resonates with others, they can learn more and feel personal connection, instead of listening Impressive words about your services and skills.

It's hard to start with the personal project, because you may not see the purpose of it or don't have a good idea. But as with any beginning it's complicated until you start. The process will lead to some result, but it's needed to return to work every day to see the progress, and to maintain the links between ideas, recent attempts and experience. Exercises are making it possible to see the path, organize thoughts and to try some cool design methods.

Fear of losing time is the main reason of avoiding personal projects. But it's impossible not to lose time. All depends, on what you expect to get instead. Experience of searching the jobs? Maybe it's valuable at some point.

Showing personal project on socials can fail too, but making ONE video / GIF / Poster can help you start with the next project much easier. Plus you can expand your emotion and add some new points of view or ideas, to transform it into sequence of messages, which will be interesting to check as a continuos story.

You can find your hidden emotions only during the work. It's hard to see them on ideation / imagination step. Sometimes your brain unloads and you finally seeing that rare layer of information that was hidden for years. It's incredible creative experience.

When you start to develop idea there are appearing many cues like images, words, mind maps, tutorials. And day by day you're starting to think about it subconsciously, to visualize the scene while dreaming. Some ideas can be written down, sketched, improved. Just by letting it grow by itself you're able to do regular tasks and work on other things. Returning to the personal project becomes a normal practice.

Removing negative judgements is also part of the project. When you decreasing the time between attempts it's also decreases the tension and making you more resistant to distractions. Which is leading to more significant progress, which can support investing a little bit more time into the project. It's important to finalize the project, before this loop will start to loose the dynamics. Success will grant you ability to start over another project, when you'll recover.

Short animation projects can be grouped into longer video, but starting big project for years may take too much time and efforts, which is absolutely not the best choice for efficiency. Ideas should be short, there's no need of making movies for things that are not so deep to think about it. Collecting reactions is a best way for a quick interaction and reminding about your services, but not bothering people.

Making personal projects is a skill, that needs to be learnt by yourself from the beginning in any age, and with any skill. It's just different way of thinking - not technical, but emotional.

You can share experience about your day, vacation, new parfum emotion, something you can be sure about and have experienced. You can tell the truth that may be interesting for someone. It doesn't matter if they like it. It's yours. It's just to share something personal.

People like those who puts a soul into work.

Motion designers can present another world and their own vision on subjects like films, music, relationships, journeys.
It helps learning faster, more substantialy and multi-dimensionaly at the same time. Finding new friends and connections with animations can give new possibilities to discover cross-cultural wonders.

It's already much more than money and career. It's about your place in this world, and it's above the competition.
It's unique and connected usually just with your personality. Even if it's small 3 seconds animation. It shows much more than just motion graphics.