"If You Haven't Done It Before, All Bets Are Off", Side Projects Benefits

http://prog21.dadgum.com/209.html

Above is the reason why I cannot give an answer, most of the times, to the question - how much time will it take?

Excerpt:

Except when it comes to figuring out how much work it's going to take. In that case, without having done it before, all bets are off.

This gives us another reason for doing those side-projects that never seem to take off. If we work on a side-project, then, when we encounter a similar problem at our day-job, we will be better positioned to give an estimate about the work. And for sure, we would be on that team that is going to do the project. So, this is how, you slide into the projects you want to work on. Hmm.. hopefully, I will act on this realization unlike all the previous instances of enlightenment..