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[Bouchart]

I do some creative writing.  Mainly in the realm of building areas for a MUD I'm creating.

Now, this is just a side hobby of mine but I'm often too lazy to work on it.  So I'm going to ask those of you that do these creative projects not as a career but as a diversion: how do you stay focused when there are so many other easier things you could be doing with your time?

[Retro]

Listen to the sound of rain on loop and nothing else. Instant productivity.

[Bouchart]

Listen to the sound of rain on loop and nothing else. Instant productivity.

I'd probably run off to the bathroom every 10 minutes.

[Lap]

I constantly start side projects to keep me interested and give myself a break, resulting in everything taking forever.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I'd suggest deciding on a project, figuring out what all the parameters are, and set milestones. Try to decide how long, in your experience, it would take to get to each milestone. This also helps you find missing places, other flaws in your design, and it acts as a freebie brainstorming session since you're looking at things a different way.

Write out your plan. Cheat a little make make Milestone 1 fairly easy to reach. Each milestone should be a few dozen hours' work, and you should have a dozen or two milestones.

This way you see a progression of work done, you see the work remaining, and that motivates you. You know how when playing a game with experience points, you will push a little at the end of a level to get it done? Same with games that have distinct zones, you try to finish a whole zone or a level of the game before you finish your sitting.

If that doesn't work, try motivating yourself by giving a reward for when you reach certain milestones. If you're accustomed to eating out at work, stop doing it and just pack lunches. If you reach a milestone that day, you treat yourself with lunch out. That sort of thing.

Keep a notebook or a smartphone with you to record your ideas. I constantly have ideas that fly away never to be seen again just because I didn't write them down right away. Having a well of ideas to draw from makes you excited about writing. You will often develop a little kernel of coolness into an entire finished thing (a magic item, a spell, a room description, a monster, etc).

And take breaks here and there. Don't let yourself get burned out. On the other hand, if you feel like you might want to write, especially after a dry spell, YOU MUST WRITE because it will break you out of your funk.

Hope this helps!

[Lord Dullard]

Work on a few major projects continuously. When you get bored of one, switch to another. I often take months off of one creative project to work on something else completely different; it helps to prevent burnout. I learned a long time ago that I have way too flighty of a personality to just plow through months of work without getting disgusted and abandoning whatever I'm doing. As an alternative, I just come back to such things and pick up where I left off.

[Muz]

I dunno, I don't really focus. Too many things to try to do, so I just do whichever I feel like doing. Creative projects are just something to do with my free time. IMO, a good guideline is that if you're not excited about it, it's just not good enough. A really good project will keep you up all night, unable to sleep because you feel that you should be devoting time to it.

Devlogs are also good.

[MaximumZero]

Get excited about your work. Failing that, get other people excited. Post us a link and then we'll all show up and tell you what we want, and if you see ideas that line up with you want, do those first.

[Vector]

I make elaborate plans for whatever I'm going to do, let them sit for half a year, and then spend however long it takes to finish them in the throes of wild creativity.  For me, it's all about letting things marinate so I can figure out which ideas are good, because that way I don't get severely disappointed when it comes time to start working.

No disappointment -> lots of energy to work :3

[Siquo]

Some good ideas here, thanks.

I has a project, and I occasionally work on it, and write maybe a few lines per day, if at all. Perhaps a devlog or something will motivate me more.

[MaelstromUK]

Getting excited about your own work is a pretty essential one, along with setting yourself overall goals for what you want to achieve, as LeoLeonardoIII was saying so wisely. Maybe set up a little blog or way to share your progress with other people, I found that can be an incentive too. As soon as something feels like a chore though, you'll stop doing it, it's something for your free time after all so it should be fun!

I also find that forcing myself to sit and just get on with it can spark a good bout of productivity afterwards. Sometimes that bit of self-discipline can be all that's needed to rekindle an idea/project!

Good luck!