[MarkCole]

I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Find parts of your life you want to automate and do less of. An example, I used to budget my money using an excel spreadsheet. I would copy my income and expenses direct from my bank account at the end of each month and categorize it per hand. Now I have a tool that can just download the CSV files from my bank, my PDF bills, and automatically pour all that into a database. I then have a relatively simple webpage where I can view this all, or throw an SQL query at that database.

Find things in your life that you do regularly, and find ways to simplify it through code.

2. Have you considered finding a non-profit and offering your skills there? Non-profits will usually have a website they need developed, or tasks that could be made a hell of a lot simpler through a for loop or two.

[marcAKAmarc]

Similar to your first point, I like to find parts of my life that I'm CURIOUS about, and automate them or make a model/simulation of them. This technique has the added bonus of deepening your understanding of that aspect of your life.

For example, I've been a hobbyist songwriter / composer for a good part of my life. Recently I've taken up creating a procedural musical composition generator, and boy have I learned more about music theory in the past few months than I have in the past few years. Additionally, I've gained significant insight into my own musical tendencies. Not to mention, a programming product that I'm both proud of and interested in using/improving.

[newbear]

Mind sharing the excel?

[MarkCole]

Ahhh sorry I didn't see this. I don't have a blank copy of it that I can find. Only one with a lot of private info in it. It was based on one I found by googling "excel budget templates", "excel financial planning templates" etc if that helps any.

[commonanatomy]

Thanks for the rely. I really like #2, thanks for the idea!