Personally, I don't "get myself" to do anything, I just do it for fun.

The usual cycle is that I start hacking on some fun thing like an implementation of rules for a board game or trying to work out how some library I use works. Eventually I write down where I am then stop, maybe because I got bored or it was too hard.

Then I forget that the project was hard, become convinced that it was easy, then spend an evening hacking away again.

It's just leisure. Like putting a bookmark in a novel.

Somewhat related I have a little script that shows me three notes at random everyday. If they’re stale or no longer needed I delete the note. This helps keep it relatively fresh over time.

I have a tag “#noreview” for notes that are evergreen that don’t need to be reviewed. Example of that might which bus to take from Heathrow when visiting friends in London