A good thing is you are already, motivated to sit down and work on your side project.
I suffered from the same issue and the problem was, i lose focus really easily, so what helped me overcome this is for each session i take to work on my side project, i should first define a concrete and an achievable task, so for example if the side project i am working on requires me to use a library that i am not familiar with, the tasks that i will define are :
- find out which resources are recommended to learn this library, and pick the most recommended one.
- read sections A, B and C from the chosen resource.
- read sections D, E and F from the chosen resource.
...
And examples of programming tasks are :
- Create an Http end point that forwards requests to two configured hosts.
- Create the class that captures the Http Requests.
- Create a function IncomingHttpRequest => ForwardedHttpRequest.
- write tests for this function.
Do not be afraid to further decompose your task into sub-tasks, and to define really small tasks.
Other things that helped me :
- having a desk that i only use to work on my side project.
- meditation
- listening to podcasts when i am doing a task that does not require a lot of focus.
good one. i use large whiteboards to break down the tasks of my project(s). so that whenever i want to work on the project, i can look at that task board and quickly remember where i left off last time. that helps me for my paid work too. so i can treat them side by side, and i don't spend a lot of mental effort to switch. that is another issue that otherwise keeps me from working on something.
I suffered from the same issue and the problem was, i lose focus really easily, so what helped me overcome this is for each session i take to work on my side project, i should first define a concrete and an achievable task, so for example if the side project i am working on requires me to use a library that i am not familiar with, the tasks that i will define are :
- find out which resources are recommended to learn this library, and pick the most recommended one.
- read sections A, B and C from the chosen resource.
- read sections D, E and F from the chosen resource.
...
And examples of programming tasks are :
- Create an Http end point that forwards requests to two configured hosts.
Do not be afraid to further decompose your task into sub-tasks, and to define really small tasks.Other things that helped me :
- having a desk that i only use to work on my side project.
- meditation
- listening to podcasts when i am doing a task that does not require a lot of focus.