Comment by majora2007

I have 2 primary side-projects, one that has become a popular open source project and another which is a personal tool.

For me, I commit myself to work on it every day except vacations. I use a kanban board for tracking work and just do things that feel natural. When I'm grinding out a big story, sometimes I switch and just focus on small bugfixes or random ideas to rebuild the motivation.

My other side project is much less worked on. But when I have a need in the software, I just focus on it for a week and document everything in Github issues. Usually the needs are quite complex and the fun of solving and getting a nice solution is fun enough to help drive me through.

I only work on things that I have a need for and I think that helps a lot with the mindset of finishing it off.