Why do many hobbyist projects derail?

While cleaning out a corner of my basement to prepare for some renovations I came across a box full of electronic components that I hadn't looked at in years.  Each part I picked up brought back a memory of its origin.  Here was an HC11 evaluation board I won at a conference in the 1990's.  Never did get around to using it.  Here was a xenon flash tube that I was going to do something interesting with - can't remember what though.  Ah, a bag of high intensity LEDs.  Those were going to be used to make an illuminated proximity warning system to help us park our new car in the garage without bumping into the wall.  The new car was longer than the old one and had to be parked further into the garage.  Hmm, the "new car" was purchased in 2004 and we learned to park it without technical aids, so the LEDs are still in the bag.  What's this?  Ah, yes, a home automation controller board from Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar days.  I assembled the board, but never used it.  Still want to automate my home though, but now with Internet enabled devices.  Several antistatic bags containing a variety of semiconductor devices that apparently caught my attention at one time or another.  Date codes stretching back to the late 1980's on some of them. Wire wrap IC sockets.  One of those :CueCat bar code readers - yeah, moving on, 6" by 6" photovoltaic panels, a bunch of RFID tags and a Parallax reader, Dallas Semiconductor i-buttons.  Hey, I did get part way through a project with the i-buttons.  Wrote code that successfully read them and displayed their contents on an LCD.  Then couldn't decide how to incorporate them into a door latch system (which latch to use?  Did I really want to go through the effort of modifying my doors?  Would the family actually use the i-buttons or would they rebel and demand we use keys?)  So, the i-buttons took up residence with all of the other misfit technology in my box of unrealized dreams.  The cloudy grey light cast through the basement window makes the silver antistatic bags look sad.

Contrast this with the artifacts in my office at work.  Here I find evidence everywhere of finished projects.  There are a few left over parts from various prototypes that were completed and handed over to clients.  There are file folders and binders with fully documented code, schematics, user manuals, meeting minutes, engineering change orders, heaps of test results, pictures of each project showing stages of development, happy team members handing over prototypes to clients with funders and developers shaking hands in the foreground.  For the most part, I have no idea what happened to those prototypes after they left the building, but that is another topic for another time.

Why the contrast?  Why do projects at work get finished and handed off, but so many projects at home don't?  Does any of this sound familiar, or am I alone in my obsessive tinker compulsion that derails easily, leaving a backlog of unfinished projects?

Here is how this plays out for me:

Start with seeing a new dev kit or a new sensor on the web, or in a trade magazine.  I dream up an exciting application for the new toy then, if it is reasonably priced, and so many of the new toys are, I purchase it from the manufacturer, or more often than not, from my favorite distributor, Newark.  It arrives a few days later, I open it up and look it over, download the support documentation from the web and any associated software tools.  Maybe I power it up or stuff it into a breadboard and connect it to a 'scope to learn more about how it works.  Then it sits on my bench next to several other similar toys and eventually when there is just no more room on the bench, I purge the clutter into the box of unrealized dreams.  Branch to start and repeat.

Why does this happen?  Why don't I get discouraged and stop my hobbyist tinkering?

Projects at work get finished because they are wrapped in layers of professional responsibility and robust project management.  They are well funded and driven by a team of skilled and dedicated colleagues. I get paid to manage them and I have a vested interest in their success and there is an expectation, at least anticipation, that what we are doing contributes to a value chain and money will be made. Not that the world will be a better place or that great burdensome problems will be eradicated by our work, just that money will be made. No surprise then that these projects see the light of day after incubating in the lab for several months or years.

I have identified the following factors that can derail a home project.  There are probably others.  Most can be eliminated with adequate planning, strategic thinking, and determination.  There are a couple at the end of the list that often stymie me, but as in the game of golf, a stymie does not make the play impossible, just more challenging.

Lack of time

Finding time is a matter of prioritizing.  Although non-renewable, as long as we are alive, we have a continuous stream of time on our hands.  We just have to decide what to do with it.

Lack of space

Some projects are not suited to the home workshop: large hadron colliders, Dyson spheres, space elevators, gravity wave detectors - those sorts of things. But most electronic hobbyist projects don't take up much space.  Electronics has been on a one-way highway toward miniaturization for many decades.  The real problem here may be lack of organized space and that can be overcome by, well, getting organized.

Don't have the right test equipment

Sure, working with certain technologies requires sophisticated test equipment.  Many of us are kept out of projects that feed on multi-GHz signals because the cost of test instruments that work up there is prohibitive.  Otherwise, a lot of projects can be successfully developed with  basic bench equipment like a power supply and an oscilloscope.  Adequate oscilloscopes can be had for under $1000.  They may come with awful support and imaginary warranties, but they are adequate for a variety of applications.  One can always pursue a borrow of higher end equipment from work or another lab for the short duration that a research grade piece of gear is needed to run a suite of tests.  Let us not forget the possibility of winning a beautiful piece of gear in an Element14 Road Test.  By no means a certain way of getting the equipment you need,as only a few items are typically distributed among dozens of applicants, but the possibility of being selected exists and that alone should be a remarkable motivator to at least apply.

Missing knowledge

Okay, so a new technology emerges that looks interesting but you have gaps in your understanding.  This really should not be raised up the reasons-to-not-engage flag pole.  If you are an engineer, technologist, technician, or hobbyist you have prima facie demonstrated the wherewithal to learn new concepts.  In all honesty, isn't learning about new stuff a hardwired trigger that releases endorphins inside an engineers mind?  Access is not an issue either as pretty much everything one would want to know, and a good dollop of what one does not want to know, is available for free, on the web.

Don't have the money

Although more difficult to argue this away, it is easy to support the concepts of saving and budgeting.  Just like the highway to miniaturization, many electronic technologies are riding a parallel highway toward decreased cost.  When a particular item strikes me as too expensive I turn to the ebay marketplace where often, sometimes inexplicably, I find what I'm looking for at an agreeable price.

Lack of motivation

You don't get much heat or light from an extinguished fire and if heat and light are what you need, then you are likely to move on to a burning fire.  I'm curious to hear from readers about what extinguishes their motivational fires.  Often, for me it is achieving a first level understanding of a technology that drops a bucket of water on my motivational fire.  Once my initial curiosity is satisfied I begin thinking, well, I know the basics, if this technology ever comes up again I can roar ahead with development, in the meantime I'll just file this knowledge away and look for the next new thing.  Underlying this rationalization is a deeper philosophical question that may be the ultimate reason why I shy away from completing projects.  And that is . . .

Questions of ultimate utility - will anything I develop help mankind, me, my family, my students - before it ends up in a land fill or recycling centre?

Sometime ago I developed a reflexive habit connected to the act of purchasing things.  I will ask myself these questions:  Where will I store this thing?  How will I maintain it?  What will I do with it when I no longer need it?  Where will it go when I part with it?  Is the whole lifecycle cost worth my investing in it? These questions are whimsical when directed toward some things, like food, and more serious when directed toward things like cars, furniture, appliances, and test equipment.  I am vexed by these questions when they are directed toward material investment in hobbyist projects.I find it difficult to justify the investment in anything that will likely only be used by me, for my own amusement, only for a while, then end up in a land fill, recycling centre or attic. Is the simple satisfaction of accomplishing project completion enough to justify the effort and cost necessary to blaze the trail to completion?  I'm still arguing with myself about the answer to that question.

That sums up my perspective on why hobbyist projects get derailed.  I invite you to share your perspective.