The Graveyard in My Hard Drive
I’ve got a folder on my desktop called “Archive” that’s basically a digital graveyard of good intentions. There’s the half-built app that was going to revolutionize how people track their reading habits. The online course I spent three months outlining before realizing I had no idea how to actually teach what I thought I knew. The newsletter that died after issue number seven when I ran out of things to say.
For the longest time, I treated this folder like radioactive waste. Don’t look directly at it. Don’t think about what’s in there. Just let it sit and decompose quietly while I moved on to the next shiny project that was definitely going to be different this time.
But something shifted last month when I accidentally opened one of those old project files. Instead of the usual wave of embarrassment and self-recrimination, I found myself genuinely curious. What had I been thinking? Where exactly did things go sideways? And more importantly, what could I actually learn from the wreckage?
The Pattern I Kept Missing
Going through these digital remains, I started noticing something I’d never paid attention to before. It wasn’t that my ideas were bad or that I lacked the skills to execute them. The real problem was subtler and way more interesting.
Take that reading app. I’d spent weeks building user flows and designing interfaces for features like social sharing and reading streaks and elaborate statistics dashboards. But I’d never once actually used a reading tracker myself. I’d built an entire solution for a problem I’d never personally experienced. When I finally tried to use my own creation, it felt alien and overcomplicated because it was designed by someone who didn’t understand the actual user, which was supposed to be me.
The online course followed a similar pattern. I’d mapped out twelve modules covering everything from basic concepts to advanced strategies, complete with worksheets and video scripts. But I’d never taken an online course in that subject area myself. I had no idea what questions beginners actually ask or where they typically get stuck. I was teaching in a vacuum, projecting confidence about educational methods I’d never tested.
The newsletter was maybe the most telling. I’d planned this elaborate content calendar with themes and series and guest interviews. But I’d never been a consistent reader of newsletters in that niche. I didn’t know what made me personally click on subject lines or what kinds of stories kept me reading to the end. I was writing for an audience I’d never been part of.
The User Research I Never Did
This is where it gets uncomfortable, because the user research I should have done wasn’t some elaborate study with focus groups and surveys. The research I needed was simpler and harder: I needed to be honest about my own experience.
Before building that reading app, I should have spent a month actually tracking my reading habits with existing tools. Not to copy them, but to understand what worked and what drove me crazy. To feel the friction points in my own fingers. To notice the moments when I forgot to log a book or got annoyed with a feature.
Before planning that course, I should have taken three or four similar courses as a genuine student. Not to plagiarize, but to experience what it felt like to be confused by an explanation or motivated by an assignment. To understand the emotional journey of learning something new in that format.
Before launching that newsletter, I should have subscribed to twenty newsletters in adjacent spaces and paid attention to my own reading behavior. Which ones did I actually open? Which ones made me think or laugh or forward them to friends? What made me unsubscribe?
The thing is, I thought I was doing research. I’d read articles about best practices and studied successful examples and even talked to a few potential users. But I’d skipped the most important research subject: myself. I’d never put myself in the shoes of the person I was trying to serve.
Why This Matters Beyond My Personal Failures
I’m realizing this isn’t just about project management or product development. It’s about a fundamental disconnect between what we think we know and what we actually understand. We live in a culture that rewards expertise and confidence, so we learn to project authority even when we’re operating outside our real experience.
But some of the most valuable insights come from admitting what we don’t know and then putting ourselves in positions to learn it firsthand. Not just intellectually, but experientially. Not just reading about something, but living with it.
This applies to so many areas beyond failed side projects. Want to write about productivity? Start by honestly examining your own relationship with task management and time blocking. Thinking about starting a local business? Begin by being a genuine customer of similar businesses in your area. Considering a career change? Shadow someone in that role or volunteer in that field before you commit.
The hardest part is that this kind of research takes time and humility. It means admitting you don’t already know everything you need to know. It means being a beginner again. It means potentially discovering that your initial assumptions were wrong and your planned approach needs to change.
What I’m Trying Differently Now
These days, before I start building anything, I try to become my own target user first. It sounds obvious when I write it out, but it’s surprisingly easy to skip this step when you’re excited about an idea.
I’m working on a project now that involves helping people develop better writing habits. But before I design a single feature or write a single blog post about it, I’m spending three months experimenting with different writing habit approaches myself. Not just thinking about what might work, but actually trying things and paying attention to what helps and what doesn’t.
Some days this feels inefficient. I could be building or creating or launching instead of just… experiencing. But I’m starting to understand that this experiential research isn’t separate from the work, it is the work. The insights I’m gathering about my own resistance to writing schedules and my actual response to different kinds of prompts are becoming the foundation for everything else.
Maybe your graveyard folder has different kinds of projects in it, but I’m betting there are patterns worth examining. Not to beat yourself up about what went wrong, but to understand what you might have missed the first time around. Sometimes the most valuable education is hiding in our failures, waiting for us to get curious instead of just disappointed.