Why your side project dies at 80% done

Key takeaways

• The last 20% of a side project is all polish work — the boring 80/20 inversion: no novelty dopamine, so momentum dies exactly when shipping matters most.
• Fix: define “done” as one sentence before starting. If the sentence works, ship; every feature past it is a new project wearing the old one’s clothes.
• Shipping small things on a schedule beats shipping one big thing never — the schedule is the feature.