My personal realization that finally let me get finishing was to realize that projects I'd abandoned years ago, regardless of how misguided they seemed at the time, would have been awesome had I only kept grinding away at them. Eventually it would tip and get to cruise control. But by ditching them and starting over again, I was always starting over.
So I chose a project I knew would eventually turn out awesome if I just kept at it. That's this site, and it's still a work in progress, but it's getting a bit better every week.
Good observation on the finish vs restart. The other hard part about side projects is they can run over such a long timeframe that you can get demotivated by the difference in quality across components (code or otherwise). I think this can spur the temptation to start over, eg, "I'm so much better now! If I start from scratch it will be nothing but puppies and perfection!".
Catch being of course, you will continue to grow, especially if you are building things as a calling. Think the balance is to remember that if you're applying your trade you'll always be better than yesterday, so rework the critical bits (like gaping security or structural issues), and push forward to done.
Having a goal to open source something can compound this, since you know one day some bright young things are going to be lobbing entirely legitimate pull requests at your old, duct tape code from when you were first getting started.
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My personal realization that finally let me get finishing was to realize that projects I'd abandoned years ago, regardless of how misguided they seemed at the time, would have been awesome had I only kept grinding away at them. Eventually it would tip and get to cruise control. But by ditching them and starting over again, I was always starting over.
So I chose a project I knew would eventually turn out awesome if I just kept at it. That's this site, and it's still a work in progress, but it's getting a bit better every week.
Good observation on the finish vs restart. The other hard part about side projects is they can run over such a long timeframe that you can get demotivated by the difference in quality across components (code or otherwise). I think this can spur the temptation to start over, eg, "I'm so much better now! If I start from scratch it will be nothing but puppies and perfection!".
Catch being of course, you will continue to grow, especially if you are building things as a calling. Think the balance is to remember that if you're applying your trade you'll always be better than yesterday, so rework the critical bits (like gaping security or structural issues), and push forward to done.
Having a goal to open source something can compound this, since you know one day some bright young things are going to be lobbing entirely legitimate pull requests at your old, duct tape code from when you were first getting started.