I have two points to make here: 1. Your general mood - I don't think you can control it and so you might be better off going along with it rather than trying t

I have two points to make here: 1. Your general mood - I don't think you can control it and so you might be better off going along with it rather than trying to fight it. I also work on my stuff part time, and many days I sit down with the intention of doing something and I realize that I just can't do a damned thing. Forcing yourself to do stuff at this point is likely to make you unhappy and produce no code, so it's kinda useless. I don't know about you, but I don't know when exactly I am in the good/bad mood, so I sit down and try to get some work done. Some nights I end up working 6+hrs straight into the wee hours and other nights I close down the editor and play CS or watch TV. 2. When you're working on new stuff sometimes its hard to get started since there may be several ways to do it, and they all seem equally valid. Instead of trying to plan out too much, just start implementing one of them. Even if you chose wrongly (you can reverse it later), it'll both motivate you to work further and give you a much better idea of what it is that you actually want/need to do. I tend to do a good amount this kind of programming and it works out well in the end (if I compare some of earlier check-ins for my current project with the latest ones, there'll be very very little in common) As awesome as the Hacker's Diet is (I use EMA weight chart to keep track of my weight), I don't think you'll find something quite like that for emotions ;)