Signs your first project is already too big

I use this same sentence test on my own ideas before I let myself start building. If you can't describe your project in a single plain sentence, it's probably too big. If you keep finding reasons to delay starting, that's usually not laziness — it's your gut telling you the scope feels heavy before your mind admits it.

Big projects aren't wrong forever, they're just wrong for a first attempt. Trying to learn a new tool and manage a huge, ambitious scope at the same time doubles the number of ways things can go wrong, and doubles the discouragement when they do.

Try this today: take whatever project you've been putting off and try to shrink it by half, then half again. Keep cutting until it feels almost too easy to bother starting. That's usually the right size for a first version. You can always add the bigger pieces back once the small version actually works.