Getting Past the Activation Energy

I've started a lot of books, games, projects.etc and left half way through. Not because they are uninteresting or boring picks (may be some of them are) but because couldn't sustain my motivation for long. By approaching each new project as "I'll be spending 5-30mins daily", I've had setup myself for failure.

Doesn't mean doing 5mins daily when building an habit is bad idea but is not suitable for all kinds of projects. Instead of doing short chunks daily without a miss, for a long period of time, where the possibility of losing motivation is high after initial few days or weeks, by going intensive, this problem can be avoided.

By going intensive in the initial sessions of starting something, naturally when the motivation is high, which is probably the reason for starting, it is easy to get past that activation phase.

Starting a new book, where the character & world building is heavy in the initial parts, it becomes easier to quit before the actual story began. Starting a new game, it's easier to quit or jump to something else while learning and getting accustomed to game mechanics, before even getting lost in the game world. Starting a new project, it's easier to quit when there's not enough progress, even before any users started using it.

Only after getting past the initial ramp up, motivation plays less of a role in continuing the project as the project feedback loop itself takes over and helps us in pushing through.

Before starting something new, ask question "Can I spend enough time on this and nothing else to get past the activation energy?"