I think you need to ignore the projects you are trying to do and instead work on getting a decent CI/CD workflow setup, preferably with strong automation drivin

I think you need to ignore the projects you are trying to do and instead work on getting a decent CI/CD workflow setup, preferably with strong automation driving it. The reason I say this is that it sounds to me like you are a victim of lots of unfinished projects that probably never got running properly in dev, let alone in a deployed environment. I've been there and I know it's very demoralizing to work on something and not close the loop on it, and to be staring at a mass of code that didn't go anywhere. I fixed this in my own projects by starting to treat my side coding as proper development work. I put together a Jenkins container with pipelines that test/build/deploy my code automatically. I actually write tests and spend real time on architectural decisions that I might not have cared about if I was just hacking. The result has been that I'm a stronger dev now, much more professional and productive in my workflow, and my side projects are actual software that builds green and deploys. It took me like a month of side time to set that container up like I wanted it, but it has completely changed how I feel about my work. I take it seriously now. Give this a shot if this sounds right to you, I think it could help. Best of luck:)