"Once I've solved the puzzle, the fun is gone, and actually finishing the project is a lot more like work than fun."
Simple life hack: Next time you're planning on starting a project like that, declare that the goal in advance.
If you're finishing projects at work, you know you could finish, if you wanted to, but whether you "finish" a project should be subject to cost/benefits analysis just like anything else. Your $COOL_PROJECT isn't a failure if it doesn't attain 15,000 stars on GitHub, unless you chose to make that a goal.
Simple life hack: Next time you're planning on starting a project like that, declare that the goal in advance.
If you're finishing projects at work, you know you could finish, if you wanted to, but whether you "finish" a project should be subject to cost/benefits analysis just like anything else. Your $COOL_PROJECT isn't a failure if it doesn't attain 15,000 stars on GitHub, unless you chose to make that a goal.