> I wanted to add something in response to this bit - I have, for most of my dev career, tended to avoid doing big projects when I'm playing around on the side. I have, for example, completed one year of Advent of Code, done quite a few puzzles from other years, and done lots of little one-off things like that.

Whenever I set myself a large project and prepare to undertake something large, my motivation to work on it changes and I start wanting to do other things.

But when I just commit to do a small task of part of something large I feel I can do anything I want. I just need to get the small task done. You can scale a mountain doing a little part at a time.