1) pick a project large and difficult enough that you don't already know how to accomplish it. I certainly will not have fun if I already know how to accomplis

1) pick a project large and difficult enough that you don't already know how to accomplish it. I certainly will not have fun if I already know how to accomplish the task before I've begun. 2) daily progress. It doesn't have to be consistently a huge amount of progress every day, but it should be enough progress that you could grab somebody and say "hey take a look at what I did today" and be able to show them some new functionality you've added. 3) responsibility. You should feel bad if you are not making progress. If there are no consequences then it's easy to slide off the cliff. To help myself with #3, two weeks ago I began making daily video logs (like from the movie Avatar). Every day I tell the camera what I have accomplished, and I present a quick 1-2 minute demo of the new code or functionality. But most importantly I tell the camera what I will accomplish tomorrow. And in tomorrow's video log I better either have that task completed or I have to fess up and explain to the camera why I didn't get it done.