Understand and accept your schedule. How much time can you realistically spend on such projects? Then, schedule and budget that time. Maybe you have an hour on

Understand and accept your schedule. How much time can you realistically spend on such projects? Then, schedule and budget that time. Maybe you have an hour on Monday evening. Plan to do something that you can accomplish in an hour. Might be two thirty-minute tasks, or half of a two-hour task. I used to have lofty ambitions for spending time on side projects, but I came to realize that I must of necessity limit my expectations. Weekdays, I might only have an hour or two. Sometimes zero. Weekends, probably more time, but maybe not. So I work on smaller projects, or on larger projects that I can divide into smaller chunks. I am working on evaluating my mentality at the beginning of my project time; some days I am just too tired, but instead of accepting this, I sit there and pretend to work for an hour or two. That's a waste. I'd rather read, or exercise, if I'm not in a good frame of mind to actually work. It can be tough! And the work output might not be as high as you like. But you can still do great things.