1) First start with trying to sketch out (write out) the solution on paper. Writing out your solution forces you to think the problem through. Psychologically,

1) First start with trying to sketch out (write out) the solution on paper. Writing out your solution forces you to think the problem through. Psychologically, you don't see it as being stressful or as tasking as writing code which means you're more likely to stick with it for some days. 2) Try to work on your idea at least 4 or 5 days of the week, no matter how small the time. You don't have to write code. Sometimes it could be something as small as choosing a color scheme, picking your twitter handle, registering a domain name. You just need to make progress. 3) Acknowledge upfront that this idea might not lead anywhere and might not be commercially viable but the knowledge gained is not lost and you can use that idea in something else. For example, I once worked on a pet project that involved turning SVGs into PNG or GIFs via Javascript. I also worked on another project where I tried to build a blogging platform on Google App Engine (I was trying to learn more about Flask and Google App Engine). Both did not go anywhere. However my latest project - https://nocommandline.com https://nocommandline.com - uses the code/knowledge from those 2 projects. My blog is based on the blogging code and some of the images I use were generated from the other project. In fact I have used that in some other stuff I did for people