Finishing a side project

This approach is something I actually use across a wide variety of things. Particularly (so long as there's not a super-tight deadline), not finishing a task at work before the end of the day - no 'oh I'll just get this one thing finished'. If I've got a task I'm already well into, then coming back to it the next day and jumping write in gets you back into that zone.

I agree and disagree! I've seen the comments where the issue is nuanced, but I'll add some of mine.

I play point-and-click video games remotely with a friend. We always try to stop our sessions when we have an idea of what we want to try next, because it's much easier to start again next time. You know that you want to try to attach the rope to the tree, which means you immediately get back into the game next time.

On the other hand, I've programmed a video game with the same friend. We programmed separately, checking out a shared file of code. This meant that I always wanted to pass on a functioning version of the game. It's obvious that I wouldn't want to check in a version mid-code line, but even more than that, I got a kick out of only attempting to add things small enough so that I could finish in one evening. Aiming to always hand off a functioning version of the game made me both take on appropriate-sized tasks, and made it more fun to check in the code so that my friend could try the latest version of the game when he started coding.

There's something to be said for checking out a functioning version of the game, looking through the list of features we want to add, and then picking the one that looks easiest/most fun right now. If I had a half-finished feature to complete, I may not feel like it the next time I start, which would make me put off working on the game.

A half-finished feature may make it easier to start, but aiming to always finish a feature made me keep my ass in the chair instead of switching to playing a video game or watching Netflix.

A lot of authors would agree with your advice (I think that Hemingway talked about it in an interview, and Stephen King in the book On Writing), but I suggest trying both this method and the variant where you always try to have a functioning project and add new small features.

The thing of stopping half-way to have a clear beginning next time operated wonders for me too.

Not necessarily leaving a task incomplete: in case of small tasks, it also worked for me to have the next task clearly defined.

This only works if you can remember what you stopped in the middle of. I often come back to projects with no idea what I was last doing, so now I've got some half-finished bit to figure out rather than something that could be clearly understood.

+1 for:

- writing down the ideas after finishing a working session. Besides, I never understood why, but doing that using pen and paper works way better to me. I have an inclination to overthink, which uses being much more exhausting than the actual, productive work itself. Writing the ideas down somehow convinces my brain that they are safe and won't be forgotten, freeing resources for other important things like slowing down and resting;

- planning for interruptions. Whenever I can, I write a slightly detailed plan containing tasks I have to perform. Not necessarily the steps needed to _finish_ the project: sometimes I just have to learn some fundamentals before I'm able to have a slight idea of where to start. In such cases, I try to define some steps with things I have to learn, tests I have to perform to validate an idea and so on. Planning for the smallest tasks as possible allowed me to cope with interruptions. Sometimes I could simply pick a half-hour task and do something productive while I was waiting for somebody, for instance.

I successfully applied many of the ideas in the article on my masters. After wasting some months being stuck, I could eventually finish everything. A ~15k loc custom application to support a set of experiments + analyzing and interpreting data + writing the dissertation. I feel really proud now for seeing my work serving as a basis for further studies.

But my takeaways are:

- it's not always fun. It feels fun and rewarding now that everything is finished and I'm seeing my hard work being useful, but at the end I just wanted to finish and meet my deadlines. It works for some people to keep the end goal in mind. For me, it was detrimental: the end goal was huge and to think about it would only overwhelm me. On the other hand, having a plan with small, achievable tasks, helped;

- keep your mind in shape. Besides having healthy food, sleep and so on, try to create conditions for a good emotional environment;

- plenty of time was detrimental. I had always dreamed of an opportunity of having 8 or more hours in a row, for many months, thinking that, then, I would do lots of meaningful work. I ended up procrastinating everything else, other important tasks started to pile up and I faced what is the worst feedback loop of my life so far. I came to realize that I was more productive on 4-hours or even less work days;

- I keep collecting unfinished projects, but, as another commented said here before, it's OK. That might not impress recruiters and the community, but I learned something from them, have some reusable code and knowledge, and I can finish them whenever I feels like.