I agree with your sentiment -- I've been through long periods of little-to-no side project hacking. Like multi-year, long. I've been working on my current side projects for over two years now but I finally made the decision last fall to make the hard decision: either this is going to be something that I REALLY want to get out there (and thus, I need to work really hard to make it happen) or I need to be comfortable with letting it slowly progress over a long period of time. I made the decision to go for it, so I'm writing the code to make it happen!
But yeah, for every season there is definitely a different formula. In the next phase of my life hopefully I can find other things to bring this level of excitement and stimulation!
You're absolutely right in that its critical to either kick things into gear, or know that its going to take a long time for things to happen. That's excellent focus. I look forward to shifting back to the other side at some point. Maybe in 2015 ;)
I agree with your sentiment -- I've been through long periods of little-to-no side project hacking. Like multi-year, long. I've been working on my current side projects for over two years now but I finally made the decision last fall to make the hard decision: either this is going to be something that I REALLY want to get out there (and thus, I need to work really hard to make it happen) or I need to be comfortable with letting it slowly progress over a long period of time. I made the decision to go for it, so I'm writing the code to make it happen!
But yeah, for every season there is definitely a different formula. In the next phase of my life hopefully I can find other things to bring this level of excitement and stimulation!