First off, I have been learning/working as a Programmer for about 1.5 years. So I don't have that much experience.<p>But my Question is; how do I decide/inspire myself, about what Project I want to do in my free time. I really like to program, but for now I have only done Projects for School, and small exercises, that teach Programming. I have wanted to do a Project for quite some time now, but I really don't have any ideas on what to do.<p>I would really appreciate some help.
Create something that helps solve an inconvenience to you!<p>Example being, for me whenever I go to Wegmans I can't find what I need. Therefore, I went on their website and found out I can scrape the location / price of food per each of their stores. So I'm working on a little personal application that helps create a shopping list with the location in store and price of food that I want to buy, but I'm making it in a way so that it works for all of their stores just in case I decide to deploy it.<p>Simple things like that are awesome ideas. Don't go for ideas like creating a new social media app that will compete with Facebook or Instagram...I mean those are still good portfolio builders since it gives you an opportunity to fullstack, but don't really bring anything new and out there to the table.<p>You can also go to nearby businesses and ask if they need a website, or better yet don't even ask them and just create the website. Then when you get something nice looking you can walk in and let them know about it and see if they're interested in buying it or using it.
I think one thing is true: You won't come up with a good project so long as programming is your major life interest. Programming is an enabler, but you must have some passion outside of programming to have the makings of a good project.