Finishing a side project

If you need to go to a café and create a new user for each new side project, you’re not gonna work a lot. I understand needing separate contexts for separate projects but this seems like overkill. The context is in your mind, not your environment.

I have my share of past and ongoing side projects, including hobby websites [1], funny tutorials [2], an ebook [2], coding references [4] and a CSS framework [5].

Like the blog says, the motivation is always here at the start. It’s the second part, when this motivation fades, that is hard. What you need is discipline. I work from home so discipline is key, even in my professional work. How you acquire it is through time management: you need to dedicate time to a project. I do this through predefined 2-hour slots each day or week where I have to work on a project. That way I don’t have an endless timeframe in my kind (because endless would mean “this is never be finished”) and provides me a repeatable and reproducible pattern. And by scheduling it in advance, it provides me with a plan to look forward too, and not end up sitting in front of my computer during a break and asking myself “What should I do now?”.

[1]: https://f1standings.com

[2]: https://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/

[3]: https://jgthms.com/css-in-44-minutes-ebook/

[4]: https://cssreference.io/

[5]: https://bulma.io/

I am always motivated to start a side-project to generate some extra income, but then I decide my time is better spent studying for job interviews. Eventually, I get sick of leetcode and go back to working on my side projects. It's a vicious cycle.

Great that works for you, but your argument sounds akin to asking why someone couldn't score high on the exam when you did. Different people, different motivations. I relate more to the OP than you. Just saying "be disciplined" doesn't help. This isn't the army, it's a voluntary side project I want to do when I can be watching Netflix.

To refame that comment a bit: almost every single resource you find on motivation will mention that motivation is not a matter of passion, it's a matter of discipline.

In every hobby there is always a sense of discipline, it's just usually implicit. For myself: composing orchestral scores started off as a fun little "oh this melody would sound neat". Ever since then, there have been times when I need to sit down and do some "real work" to turn that idea into an enjoyable, fulfilling result. Could I have just wrote things when I want to? Of course. But now, after years of composing, I have the skill to make things that sound great when I really just threw it together.

In software engineering, a beginner or even intermediate programmer is going to lose a lot of their initial motivation to build their idea (game, app, website) -- because in finding the skill to execute on their initial side project idea, they realize they need to develop that skill from scratch, which takes work.

I think there's a good balance between investing skills between "basic knowledge" and "career capital". What that balance is varies from person to person, but I also believe that no matter what, even if it's implied, there is always a certain amount of work that needs to be put in.

I don’t think it’s fair to believe I’m just saying “Be disciplined” when I explain how to manage your time.

I do watch Netflix too. But it’s time boxed during the day, the same way working on projects is. And in a day, I don’t work more than 6 hours. I’m always done by 6pm and can do anything in the evening. The key is to manage your time during the day and stick to a plan.

As a matter of fact, OP’s rules feel more like the army to me: having a different user or even laptop for a project, going to a different location, blocking websites like reddit… These are harder restrictions. If I really want to quit a project, I always can. I just need to close my code editor and my terminal. But in my mindset I don’t want to. Because the project is not a burden like the army: it’s 2-hour slots where I’m focused, not overwhelmed, and I know there’s an end to it.

The door to leave is always open but I don’t want to take it. It’s different.