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by mod 4197 days ago
Your problem resonates well with me. I used to be able to code 24 hours straight, forgetting to sleep, when I was just out of high school. I dreamt about code. Now I'm a grown man, professional developer, but I have a hard time accomplishing my (code) goals. I want to learn Clojure, I want to build some side projects, study SICP, and become an expert in one language. But I don't. I play bf4 and watch bad TV shows ("The 100" iirc). I'm a great heli pilot, though...

On to my advice:

Decide on a project to build. Set a deadline you want to build it by.

All those other questions will fall into place.

Don't pick a project that is the next-big-whatever. Just pick something you can accomplish within, say, a week. If you want a list of ideas, I have a couple of links or I'd even be willing to share my list of (mostly non-trivial, hopefully profitable) ideas.

Doing a few projects small projects has turned me around more than once, and made me focused and proud of myself.