[hmslydia]

I would take a pet problem that I have and solve it well. Something so personal that nobody else would solve it. A personal time management app just for me. A way to manage all my contacts so that I can keep up with them intelligently. Something to get me to do that tasks I procrastinate on the worst (like going to the Dentist). There are a million general tools for this, but having your own perfect tool is like having a superpower. And it's a great way to get to know yourself.

Alternatively, you could become the world expert in something small and bizarre. Like VIM. Just kidding. No, like some API. I got to know the MTurk api, and it then became an expert at it. Then people started treating me like an expert. It was cool.

A third approach is find somebody you want to learn from and work with them. Any project you pick will never be as important as what you learn from the project.

[losvedir]

Ha, fancy seeing you here (if that username matches up with a certain athena account)...!

That's a very good observation about becoming an expert at a particular niche. The same thing sort of happened to me one summer, when I researched so-called "Blue laws" in the US. Spend a summer diving through microfiched historical laws in the library and soon enough you know more than anyone else in the world on the subject! It's quite an interesting feeling.

However, as hmslydia said, I think an API could be a good niche here.

[hmslydia]

Ha! it is me! I'm in Cambridge! Let's catch up!!!

[bryang]

> A third approach is find somebody you want to learn from and work with them. Any project you pick will never be as important as what you learn from the project.

Finding a good teacher for whatever skills or traits you want to develop is incredibly hard but easily one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself