[twodave]

If it’s a personal project, then my advice is not to be so hard on yourself. There’s no deadline. Each time you decide to spend time on your project, you can choose how you spend that time. If researching and project management tools is really scratching your itch, then great!

Obviously if this is your livelihood then you need to remember your priorities.

I have a hobby project I’ve been working on occasionally for the past few years now, and at this point I think I’ll only ever finish it if I take a bunch of time off work. But when I do spend time on it, I work on whatever part interests me the most. Sometimes that’s just planning! Sometimes it’s graph theory. It really just depends on my mood. If I’m not having fun then it isn’t worth doing.