Since so many people are sharing their story, I will share mine. 5-6 years ago, I started working on Typesense (https://github.com/typesense/typesense), an open source, typo tolerant search engine designed for speed and developer productivity.
In the past 5 years, my journey has brought me through my wedding, the birth of my first child, losing a loved family member, a job switch and so on. Nevertheless, it has been really great seeing the project gain traction and motivate me to keep working on it through the highs and lows. Everybody differs, but I think for me the following 2 things kept me going:
a) Pick a project that you are sufficiently motived.
b) Don't set deadlines but have a plan to work on the project everyday. One some days it will be hours, on other days it will be just thinking about a problem at the back of your mind for a few minutes, but the idea is to keeping at it.
Now nearly 5 years later, I'm still not done yet but I'm amazed how much I've achieved by just showing up every single day.
In the past 5 years, my journey has brought me through my wedding, the birth of my first child, losing a loved family member, a job switch and so on. Nevertheless, it has been really great seeing the project gain traction and motivate me to keep working on it through the highs and lows. Everybody differs, but I think for me the following 2 things kept me going:
a) Pick a project that you are sufficiently motived.
b) Don't set deadlines but have a plan to work on the project everyday. One some days it will be hours, on other days it will be just thinking about a problem at the back of your mind for a few minutes, but the idea is to keeping at it.
Now nearly 5 years later, I'm still not done yet but I'm amazed how much I've achieved by just showing up every single day.