In my personal life, I adopted a "broad front" approach to long term projects.
By broad front, I mean that I'm inching a lot of things forward, instead of focusing all of my attention on a single breakthrough.
If my motivation is low, I'll do small things that will be helpful when my motivation returns. This includes planning, buying supplies, cleaning up the workspace (physical or digital) or implementing quality of life improvements. For example, I might not be ready to extract a bolt that broke in a motorcycle engine ([expletive]), but I can disassemble the engine, buy tools, or figure out how it's done.
Sometimes, this gets me right back into it. Sometimes it just makes it easier for another day. To keep with the analogy, I call it stabilizing the front.
If you do this, it's critical that you leave yourself an easy reintroduction to the project. This might be a 95% finished commit, or a really good readme. You shouldn't dread getting back into it because of the project's state.
By broad front, I mean that I'm inching a lot of things forward, instead of focusing all of my attention on a single breakthrough.
If my motivation is low, I'll do small things that will be helpful when my motivation returns. This includes planning, buying supplies, cleaning up the workspace (physical or digital) or implementing quality of life improvements. For example, I might not be ready to extract a bolt that broke in a motorcycle engine ([expletive]), but I can disassemble the engine, buy tools, or figure out how it's done.
Sometimes, this gets me right back into it. Sometimes it just makes it easier for another day. To keep with the analogy, I call it stabilizing the front.
If you do this, it's critical that you leave yourself an easy reintroduction to the project. This might be a 95% finished commit, or a really good readme. You shouldn't dread getting back into it because of the project's state.