When writing my thesis, I was very prone to procrastination. Many times, I found that some "great idea" (tm) popped into my head, and I would be all to happy to

When writing my thesis, I was very prone to procrastination. Many times, I found that some "great idea" (tm) popped into my head, and I would be all to happy to drop everything to start working on that. I think it's in no small parts because starting something new is exciting, while continuing something you've already worked on for a long time has often long lost that early magic. Needless to say that these ideas usually didn't lead to anything and in a lot of cases where replaced by "the next great idea", leaving me with tons of projects that had received as much attention as a single day in some cases. But ostensibly, that didn't feel like a problem, because by then I had already moved on to something else that excited me... for a little while. What never happened was actual progress, neither in any of these "project" not on my "thesis" which I was always more than happy to put on the back burner. But then (much too late), I realized the pattern I had falled prone to. What helped me in the end to finish my thesis was the following: instead of starting any new project head of heels the day it popped into my head, I started writing new ideas down on "for later"-list. I really wanted to finish my thesis, and although I found it very hard at first, I forced myself to not implement anything new until I after I submitted. When I was finally done with my thesis, I had probably somewhere between 20 and 30 items on my list, and I was excited to be finally "allowed" to go back to them. Well, as you may have guessed, it turned out that none of these "great ideas" interested me any more by then. So I never actually picked any of them up. But had I started on any of them right away as it had been my earlier habit, countless hours would have been burned, and I would inevitably reached the same lack of interest. So, my recommendation is not to jump from project to project too quickly. The problem is not dropping a stalled effort, but too eagerly starting something new. The biggest project had been my thesis all this time, and I really had to learn to stick it out. And I'm glad I did it.