That was up until a year or two ago. Three years ago I got married, and so my spare time has been reduced, but even when I have spare time now, I feel really unmotivated to work on side projects. I'd rather play computer games or watch TV (by myself, not necessarily with my SO, in case you thought that might be why).
I'm getting rather frustrated by it, as there are lots of new technologies and things I'd like to try. I even have a side project that has been mildly successful with a few paying customers, and with more effort I believe it could provide a substantial amount of my income. Other ideas I have are projects that won't necessarily make money, but are useful enough that I could justify the time spent building them.
But alas, I just don't feel motivated to work on any side projects outside of work. Over the last two years I've gone from working remotely pretty stress free, to working in an office with a lot of stress and overtime, and back to working remotely, so it's not an issue with my day job taking all my energy.
Any ideas?
That said, you could also try to find interesting things you actually are interested in working on. Building yet another demo website- boring. Building some sort of useful tool or home tech project- cool. At least, that's what works for me.
What I would do is to employ a technique called 'habit stacking'. Meaning:
- Take the habit you already have - that is playing video games in your spare time.
- Make a small commitment to yourself, that whenever you will feel the urge to play a video a game, instead of following the usual routine: turning on the console --> choosing a game --> playing it, you will add 5 minutes working-on-my-side-project habit right before. So your routine becomes: feeling the urge to play video games - working on the side project for 5minutes - turning on the console --> choosing a game --> playing it
That's it. You're taking the habit you have, and inserting a new, desired habit right before it.
Some extra tips:
- 5 minutes working on your side project could be spent researching, ideation, sketching, coding etc.
- I know 5 minutes looks ridiculous and it would take ages to produce any tangible result, but at this stage, don't focus on the result, focus on becoming a person that works on his side project regularly. 5 minutes every day is regularly. You might feel the urge to keep on working for more than 5 minutes, but make a conscious effort to stop after 5 minutes - this way you will develop a craving.
- print out the calendar of the next 2 months, stick it on your fridge and mark X on the days you actually worked on your side project at least 5 mins. Try building a chain. If you miss a day - don't stress, come back to it the next one.
- of course, 5 minutes is just an example - you can do 10, 15 or 3 or whatever. It just has to be an amount of time that looks ridiculously small and you'll be able to do it, even if you're unmotivated.
- Do this for 1-2 weeks and then increase your base time from 5minutes, to let's say 10. Repeat that for another 2-3 weeks and you'll see how you'll end up having a habit of working on your side project before playing video games. It's nothing wrong about wanting to unwind after a day at work. We're not robots. But if you want to have positive changes in your behavior - don't approach it with all-in-or-nothing attitude - this fails 99% of the time.
Good luck!