What is the trigger that motivates you to actually start work on a hobby project? And what motivates you to stop working on a project?

Juggling other priorities is the big one that hijacks completing most projects.

To begin projects, it used to be finding a suitable starting point. A blank page can be daunting to start with but now with AI, that issue is resolved in my book. The best part about using AI is that it's always confident (like an intern) so will always come with something. I've discovered that it becomes more useful when it's wrong as this is easier to spot and you can learn from this when validating the response received. AI failure is a great source of inspiration as fixing things becomes more purposeful that walking into the unknown.

Both the hurdle to start and the struggle to continue occurs when the magnitude of the project seems overwhelming.... in visual terms you are at the foot of a mountain and can't find the motivation to start your climb.

What is your biggest impediment to getting started on a project you intend to do?

Other - Very little gets in the way with me starting a project.  I love to start projects. I can start one every day.  The real problem is finishing a project.

What is the most common reason you give up on completting a project?

I stop working when I realize I'm really not having any fun.

Biggest impediment - Other:  I overthink how I'm going to do the project.  "How am I going to do this?"  If I don't know the path I'm going to follow, I wander the mental wasteland aimlessly until starvation kills the idea or I find another BST.

Give up?  Yup.  Lose vision of a possible route forward.  Proverbial vertical sheer cliff - like El Capitan.

Start issue.... I have lots of project ideas and lots of potential reasons to get started, but there is a tipping point when enough reasons build up to trigger a start. The reason I don't start is usually that the tipping point hasn't quite been reached.

Stop reason ... one of the main reasons I stop a project is when I have proven that it is never going to be able to meet my expectations, or when it has completed my objectives while still in an unfinished state

I find that I always have a few projects in mind that sit there vying for the scraps of my free time to get started. With a busy job and family commitments it can be hard to start anything.

The trigger to start can often be an odd one. For instance, I recently saw a nice reflow oven project using an air fryer / pizza oven. It gave me some inspiration to do something similar myself. However, what kicked it off was a saved eBay search for the same model. When one popped up for peanuts, I clicked "buy" and here we go...

As far as abandoning projects goes, I find that as a hobbyist the definition of "success" differs from a job. The main motivation for most projects is to learn and have fun. If I've done the hard bit and learned what I needed to, the in some ways the goal has been met. Finishing the project is nice - and things like E14 contests can help - but otherwise there's no real need for the final product exist. This is obviously very different if it's your job or someone actually wants the finished item.

lack of time is the major problem, either for starting as finishing a project.

Q1: Other, because cats. 

Amen. I will add that thing that slows me down on starting a project is having to order part(s) first.

Ouch - 2 questions but only one answer to select. My error log shows improper syntax :-)