I think I will do exactly what you suggest, and pick something that's more fun to work on next, rather than what I think I "ought" to.

Currently I am trying to complete one small project without putting it aside. Though I am still thinking other projects, but luckily at the moment those projects in my head require cash which I don't have, so I can't drop this and start the next.

When I have a side project I will fly through my work so that I can get back to what I really care about.

For me it is the next interesting and possibly rewarding step. Just simply knowing what's do be done next doesn't cut it for me when I perceive it as a dull task. Even if I know it can be done in a few minutes I tend to avoid even starting to work on it. I have lots of these little boring things piling up for weeks and I know I'm going to have to finish them one day or another, but for the time being I'm here on HN, following work-related links on twitter, exploring stuff or answering stackoverflow questions.

What works for me is finding something interesting, even way outside of the scope of the project. Anything that could make me start to work with the project I should be working on. From there, as soon as I catch the flow, I usually can go to fixing bugs and doing the tasks I have avoided doing for days. I spit code like mad, close a dozen of tickets in an hour, fix things only I knew were broken, doing these final touches here and there. And suddenly even these annoying things start to be highly rewarding, because finishing any of them - and most of them take very little time and effort to complete - makes me feel I've accomplished something and started to dig out of the hole I dug myself in.

Then the work day is over, or a distraction comes, I go to a meeting etc, and the next five minute task turns into countless hours of procrastination, followed by finding that itch to scratch which puts me back on the track again.

tl;dr: I have to buid elaborate scenarios to lure me into doing anything tangentially related to the project (but funny/rewarding/explorative) from where I can move to the real, but somehow boring tasks.

Then I stop working because I did realize I can use something else that will be smarter and more efficient in the long run, So then my mind goes: OK! lets start working on that, and there the endless cycle begins. Because when I start working on the thing that will make the first thing better I also realize a day or two in, that this is stupid and I need to get back to the original thing but I can't do it because X is not as efficient as Y would have been. Then I try to think of something else for Y. So in a sense I'm stuck in a cycle where I try to improve and get my self to write less code before the project even has taken off in a meaningful way. It's just like in devops when people try to scale something before you have the users... which doesn't even make sense. And I'm guilty of that as well.

Once they are “complete”, I’m loosing interest and get carried away on other things, often times I don’t even publish them anywhere.

If someone wants to team up on this, let’s chat.

My projects tend to be because I want something from them (explore a new toolset; have a working dish disposal; make my car able to play audio from bluetooth; not have to care about network filtering on random wifi aps; get a history of just how bad the temperature difference between rooms at home really is). They're "done" when either I have (enough of) what I want, or I lose interest and decide it doesn't matter that much anyway.

Of course I never returned to any of these projects.

My new approach is just to do something on my current side project, without fail, every day. There is no "finish", there's just work, and it really is more enjoyable.

I work on personal projects a few days or weeks at a time and then after solving the first set of big problems I generally let it slip and lose interest. The source code lives on my hard drive and then one weekend next year or a few years later I remember what I had been writing and I come to revisit it. Maybe I rewrite the program or extend it up to the next level, or just look at it and think "That's where I was, mentally, in 2010; I think I've made progress since, I'm not the same programmer anymore."

I place no intrinsic value on finishing the projects itself because then they would start to resemble work and I want my hobby projects to be fun.

At work I procrastinate too but that's mostly doing the more interesting tasks or tasks with the highest impact first and the less interesting tasks only when really, really needed. So I don't basically procrastinate, I just prioritize.

I think procrastination is prioritizing, really.

And sometimes you prioritize complete idling over doing anything at all which I think just tells that you were trying to do the wrong thing because if you weren't you would have forgotten to eat while staying up doing it.

One was installing a tile floor in the kitchen, including lots of research, sistering joists, ripping up the old floor, etc etc. And replacing the kitchen range, which required a range hood, which required some cabinet mods. Lots of interesting new DIY skills learned in that project.

And then last year, building a video editor, instead of recording some videos for a course.

Needless to say, this is not a very good strategy to build a healthy project in the long run.

Other times, I don't even have to break the project down into steps. I just dive into it and crank it out, thoroughly enjoying the productivity I'm experiencing.