Just like eating bad food and watching TV, being productive is a habit. Get in the habit and you'll find yourself up early on weekends working on your projects.
The way to feed the habit is with success. To experience successes, I have found:
- first minimize your goals. The less to do, the faster to succeed. The fastest way to finish a feature is by removing it from the plan.
- work on one project, maximum two. Any more and you will always jump from a project when it gets hard or to the "not fun part".
I think this is the opposite of the solution, the problem isnt doesnt sound like motivation to work, as mentioned they are always working on and excited by 'the next big thing', Its certainly something I relate to.
The problem is 'feeling productive' and 'being productive' are different things, its very easy to be working weekends and nights on your project, its very hard to realise that the chances are the work you are doing wont make a difference to anyone, most importantly yourself.
The second part I agree with, when someone does give a shit what you are working on, 1. You will take the time to make it better, 2. You have already solved the problem of a busy but ineffectual work cycle, move your motivation from 'the next best thing that will be awesome' to 'something that someone other than me cares about right now'
The best way I could recommend to do this is to look at all your projects that are on your plate, pick the one that will take the shortest amount of time for other people to start using and caring, release it tomorrow even if it sucks, start pushing it out to everyone you know, get some feedback and get into a cycle of working off peoples feedback
I don't consider "working on something I never released" as being productive though. In my original post when I was talking about habitually being productive I meant habitually shipping & following through on projects till completion, not just habitually working on 'a' project without finishing.
The way to feed the habit is with success. To experience successes, I have found:
- first minimize your goals. The less to do, the faster to succeed. The fastest way to finish a feature is by removing it from the plan.
- work on one project, maximum two. Any more and you will always jump from a project when it gets hard or to the "not fun part".