The idea
What is a side quest?
A side quest is an optional adventure you take on beside the main story. It isn't required to finish the game — or the year — but it's usually where the strange, memorable stuff happens.
In games
In role-playing games, the main quest carries the plot: defeat the villain, save the realm, reach the ending. Side quests sit off to the side — a stranger in a tavern, a locked door, a map marker you weren't told about. They're short, self-contained and voluntary, and players chase them for the rewards, the world-building and the sheer fun of the detour.
In real life
The phrase escaped gaming a while back. A real-life side quest is a small, deliberate detour from your ordinary week: taking a different route home, cooking a dish from a country you've never visited, going to an open mic, calling a relative you haven't spoken to in a year. It's low stakes, it's optional, and it's the opposite of the routine that makes months blur together.
Side quest vs. main quest
- Main quest: the job, the degree, the mortgage, the big goal you're already committed to.
- Side quest: optional, finishable in days, chosen because it sounds interesting rather than because it's required.
How to run one every week
- Claim it. Every Monday at noon, pick one quest you've never done.
- Do it. You have seven days — that's the whole constraint.
- Prove it. Come back with notes and a photo so the week actually counts for something.
That's the whole philosophy behind Weekly Side Quest: 210 ideas, one pick a week, and a public wall of evidence from everyone else running the same week.