Excitement capital

So think about this. A business doing projects have set aside budgets and spend their time and money on completing projects. For any given project, they don't want to run out of time, and they don't want to run out of money before the project is completed.

But for personal projects you have only time to consider. Or do you? What about your excitement?

Almost any personal project I have considered doing or started doing, has at some early phase, been something I was very excited about. Then over time as this excitement fades, work on the project fades with it.

So how do you make your exciting personal projects a priority?

I used to think about this, but I have now concluded that there are no good answers because the question is wrong. Instead I find it useful to rephrase it as such.

How can I complete the project while I am still excited about it?

Enter, excitement capital, if you start to value your excitement the same way corporations value money it becomes easy to understand that it should not be wasted. Better spend your excitement on something that will ensure project completion, than something that you know is required for systems with millions of users developed by multiple departments of developers.

So when thinking about doing personal projects, be mindful of your excitement capital.