Ask HN: How to finish personal projects?

To be honest I think that you're right. I'll try to spend more time thinking about projects before working on them. Thanks @rcavezza

My recent workflow has been this:

1. Put the project in a private GitHub repo. Paying for it adds incentive to work on it.

2. Break up the work into small tasks and add them as issues in the GitHub project. Aggressively separate them into milestones to stay focused (Milestone 1 == MVP, less important stuff in Milestone 2, etc).

The reason I think this works is that it is easy to get overwhelmed by all the work on a side project, and you have limited time to work on it. Now when you have time, you grab a ticket, complete it. Each ticket should be doable in a few hours or the scope of your ticket is too broad.

I've always lost motivation sometime shortly after starting on a new side project.So what I've done lately is when I think of something I'll then determine if there is a way to get it built and usable by the end of the day, even if it is just a simple script. This way I can actually later use the thing and when I have another idea to expand on it I can take that on later as another day's work.

This might not work for everyone but for me I've actually built a few useful tools that I use everyday and have been able to continue building on. The only 2 requirements needed before I undertake something is 1) that it is something I see myself using on a semi-daily basis and 2) that I can build it within a day.

I've found the nature of the idea is quite important as well.

For example for a long time I used to do very "philosophical" projects.

Huge ambitious ones where before you even start you already know it's by definition going to take years for it to get to somewhere worthwhile.

Except I wasn't ready to commit to such things, and I knew it.

That tiny half-assed part of a huge project will not amount to anything.

So overtime I accumulated a great graveyard of "this would be cool if I had worked on it for a year instead of 2 weeks" projects.

On the other hand if the idea is small and practical you can work on something for 3 weeks and have something nice and practical that is a concrete achievement.

So if finishing is your goal and you don't have tons of time to dedicate to a project my advice is to ask yourself how practical and realistic is it for you to finish an implementation of that idea in your desired time-frame?

If it's a huge idea you have to accept the reality that in your amount of time you can't finish a significant % of it.

And 5% of a huge project is often not as useful or impressive as 120% of a tiny project.

Just like it you do at a company..

1-Plan, prioritize, schedule; 2-Use a scrum.. even if you are the master, the team, the stakeholder all at the same time. Tip: don't forget the stand-up meeting.

I've learned it from a German colleague (and great friend) who even use scrum to manage his own house activities... yeah he was kind of sick.