Ask HN: Advice for those who want to build stuff but don't know where to start
Based on your experiences
Think about what interests you. What gets you excited. What would keep you up at night, thinking about the possibilities. What would make you get out of bed at 3am to go try some idea that just popped into your head.
Then find open source projects in those spaces, or in related spaces. Find out what their contribution policies are. Get involved in their community. Get advice on low-hanging fruit that you could take a crack at, but which would also help address current pain points.
Or, conversely, ask yourself what kinds of things about your city/town, neighborhood, or house that concern you.
Do you live near woodland areas? Near the Woodland-Urban Interface (WUI)? Are you concerned about wildfires in your area? Are there local groups you can join of like-minded people? Do they have issues that you can help them solve? Could you help them run their web server for their organization? Could you help them do Structure Ignition Zone Evaluations? Have you talked to the IBHS about making your own house a Wildfire Prepared Home?
Or, are you talking about building physical stuff? Is there a local group in your area that does blacksmithing? Or Habitat for Humanity?
There are an infinite variety of options here. But I think you have to start with what interests you, or what concerns you. Then follow the leads from there.
The basic principle of management is "finish what you start", see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONWIP
To take an example the people at the cafe in the next building over have a certain capacity to make food including heating in the over and all that. They don't take your order until the WIP drops below their threshold so they maintain their workflow without being overwhelmed.
Most of the time I have three "side projects" and I am really making progress on two of them and the third is aspirational... and that's OK! What's not OK is when you are starting new things over and over again and never finishing them.