[kluck]

My conclusion about motiviaton in general, after investigating this matter for a couple of years (not scientifically but nonetheless):

Intrinsic Motivation can not be created artifically.

Its funny, because I just recently found a little "trick" that somehow motivates me a little. I found this after I made a lot of lists of things, that I really like to do and during the course of it I realized that all of these things are really just fun and could never be turned into a job or towards creating a side-business (like watching movies, listening to music, hiking etc.). So most of the software projects, no matter how fun they are at first, include some unexciting parts and turn into work. The trick: I say to myself, when I have done boring task X, I will be allowed to do real fun stuff Y. I then try to imagine myself doing fun stuff Y and pretty fast I get into a good productive mood. (Sorry for the long introduction)