I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year

But seriously though, let me try to give you a couple of advices: first of all, the idea that you need to work on a project that gets you excited to get up from the bed in the morning is wrong and dangerous. Work is work and PhD is also work, just a bit different from the rest. So yeah you project is still work, so forget about being excited to get up in the morning. Trust me, you will survive even if you are not excited to get up in the morning! It's just work.

Second thing, you made a mistake, which was to involve a million people in your project before you started. You built too much pressure for the results, and that pressure made you scared and killed your motivation to work on it. It's normal to sell the fish before you catch it in academia, but to do that in a healthy and efficient way you need lots of experience (like, decades of it, and being a professor with a stable career so you can take the punch and still stand up). Now that you're back to basics, it'll be easier. Start by making it worth it to you. Work for a few hours a day, like maybe two or three, then go do something you like after that. Soon you will realize that doing the stuff you like after you work a few hours is MUCH more enjoyable than procrastinating (it really, objectively, is). So you'll train your brain to get the reward from the work: hey, if I work for two hours, I can then do X or Y which will be awesome. (Do not plan to work 8 hours a day. You won't).

Third, remember that you (as in, you, a person, a living being) are more important than all of this. It's just work; it doesn't deserve all the attention it gets. So what if there are a few people disappointed with you here and there? You are also disappointed with some people and that doesn't make them go home and cry in the dark. In all probability, there will always be a few people disappointed with you for the rest of your life. Actually, the list will probably grow. :)

Good luck!

1. Make it work 2. Make it performant (always, but within reason) 3. Clean up your mess to prevent future mistakes

I claim that "if too slow" can't be judged because you almost never have the slowest possible target device.

My 2 cents if you are stuck in a situation like that, put in a single document everything you have. All the methods you have used, the results. These are easy to put and do not require any creativity. Then you start explaining context, concepts and what you planned and where it could lead. No need to make pages. Make lists. After that everything is about fluffying those lists at your own pace.

Writing is almost never a linear endeavor, even more the first time you do it.

Whatever happens being you finishing that into your article(s) and dissertation or quitting will at least make sure that nobody worked for nothing.

  1. Make it work
  2. Make it understandable
  3. Make it performant (if too slow).