I relate heavily to the author's dilemma. My projects span from math, to programming, to pinball repair, to amateur radio, to gardening, to mycology, to who knows what else. I personally enjoy the process of bike-shedding and endlessly exploring the solution space for a problem. That said, there is a point where you need to make hard decisions and button up projects.
As long as I don't care what project gets completed at what time, I've found a little trick to broadly move the needle. I jokingly call it "Sol's fast five" but the name is actually pretty on point.
I take a step back, look around me, and pick out the first five things I can reasonably achieve in less then a day prioritizing things where I have all the tools and materials at hand. These 5 things are never entire projects, the goal is to maximally decompose the projects until each action is as close to trivial as possible.
Once I have my list of 5 things I stop thinking about anything else and strictly work towards those 5 goals. There is a sense of relief in having reduced the scope and the tasks tend to be finished very quickly. Checking them off the list always feels good.
Once I have completed my 5 items I start a new list and pick out the next five items. This can feel like a huge reward.
I've used this system to great effect in the past few years.
As long as I don't care what project gets completed at what time, I've found a little trick to broadly move the needle. I jokingly call it "Sol's fast five" but the name is actually pretty on point.
I take a step back, look around me, and pick out the first five things I can reasonably achieve in less then a day prioritizing things where I have all the tools and materials at hand. These 5 things are never entire projects, the goal is to maximally decompose the projects until each action is as close to trivial as possible.
Once I have my list of 5 things I stop thinking about anything else and strictly work towards those 5 goals. There is a sense of relief in having reduced the scope and the tasks tend to be finished very quickly. Checking them off the list always feels good.
Once I have completed my 5 items I start a new list and pick out the next five items. This can feel like a huge reward.
I've used this system to great effect in the past few years.