I have a full time software-ish job (product manager) and I go in and out of being 'productive' vs. consuming (playing games, watching tv, etc). Here are the things that I've found make my side projects work:
1. Start with something insanely tiny - Every side project software or library I've built were ~4hr hacks just trying to get a basic, basic version of something working to see if I could even do it. Example: I wanted to build a web view of the books I've read, so I just installed nodejs and tried to see if I could even get a list of books from goodread. This would be step 1. Step 2 would be getting my books, step 3 would be displaying them in a browser. That's it. Once I accomplished each step, I set out a new set of tiny steps. Nothing huge, nothing crazy, nothing ambitious. Just get started and prove to yourself that you can do it :)
2. Social Pressure - More than anything, this has been huge for me. My current project is a twitch bot that I'm making for my friends' stream. I started working on it and got a basic version that could respond to commands up and running in a day, then they started playing with it and having tons of fun. Now they make videos and want to show them on the stream, they have new ideas for commands, and one of them is even helping me code it. It's been really great :) Another example of this is building a game with my brother. We started working on it together and it gave us more reasons to talk regularly and a shared purpose. This kept me going much longer than the actual game itself did.
3. Choose tech that know or you think is fun - I know this is not the ideal way to build a project, but what you're grappling with is just motivation. Pick technology that you're interested in or one that you know and you enjoy working in. For me that's nodejs and I've been writing things in it off and on for years.
4. Open source everything - by default every project I start is open source. If it's code, I constantly publish it on github. If it's a video, I post it on youtube. Blog post? Put it on medium or my blog. First, it pushes you to put things out into the world and figure out the details of releasing them (like writing documentation!) Second, every once and a while, they'll stick :) My goodreads module I mentioned above has 2 people who are actively maintaining it as I don't have alot of time/motivation to do so. They're still pushing changes and a few months ago, a co-worker stumbled upon it and used it in one of his personal projects :D Very cool!
Hope this is helpful, I've found alot of joy in side projects, even if none of them will likely ever make me any money or bring me any fame/succcess.
1. Start with something insanely tiny - Every side project software or library I've built were ~4hr hacks just trying to get a basic, basic version of something working to see if I could even do it. Example: I wanted to build a web view of the books I've read, so I just installed nodejs and tried to see if I could even get a list of books from goodread. This would be step 1. Step 2 would be getting my books, step 3 would be displaying them in a browser. That's it. Once I accomplished each step, I set out a new set of tiny steps. Nothing huge, nothing crazy, nothing ambitious. Just get started and prove to yourself that you can do it :)
2. Social Pressure - More than anything, this has been huge for me. My current project is a twitch bot that I'm making for my friends' stream. I started working on it and got a basic version that could respond to commands up and running in a day, then they started playing with it and having tons of fun. Now they make videos and want to show them on the stream, they have new ideas for commands, and one of them is even helping me code it. It's been really great :) Another example of this is building a game with my brother. We started working on it together and it gave us more reasons to talk regularly and a shared purpose. This kept me going much longer than the actual game itself did.
3. Choose tech that know or you think is fun - I know this is not the ideal way to build a project, but what you're grappling with is just motivation. Pick technology that you're interested in or one that you know and you enjoy working in. For me that's nodejs and I've been writing things in it off and on for years.
4. Open source everything - by default every project I start is open source. If it's code, I constantly publish it on github. If it's a video, I post it on youtube. Blog post? Put it on medium or my blog. First, it pushes you to put things out into the world and figure out the details of releasing them (like writing documentation!) Second, every once and a while, they'll stick :) My goodreads module I mentioned above has 2 people who are actively maintaining it as I don't have alot of time/motivation to do so. They're still pushing changes and a few months ago, a co-worker stumbled upon it and used it in one of his personal projects :D Very cool!
Hope this is helpful, I've found alot of joy in side projects, even if none of them will likely ever make me any money or bring me any fame/succcess.