Software projects are not pets. FINISH YOUR PROJECTS.
I have lately been starting a ton of projects. Usually that would mean that I would be abandoning a ton of projects, but I have been finishing them. I have been doing this by treating my projects like they are not pets.
For example, let's take grafito a web frontend for system logs.
I started it. I worked on it for a week or two of spare time, and now it's DONE. Totally done. It has no missing features. It has no bugs. It is DONE.
It does what I want it to do, it does it well, it's poublished in all the ways that make sense, and I don't have to think about it anymore.
Sure, if someone finds a bug, I will fix it. If someone asks for a feature, I will consider it. But I am not going to spend time on it unless there is a good reason to do so.
I am specially not going to spend time on it just because I like it, or because I want to keep working on it. I am not going to pet it, or feed it, or take it for walks.
I am not going to think about what features I could add. It does what it does. It's pretty unixy, in that it does one thing and does it well. It is not a pet, it is a tool.
That is how I am handling my projects nowadays. I wrote tartrazine which is a syntax highlighting tool in a couple of weeks and it's done. Sixteen? DONE.
Some projects are not finished. Crycco is not finished. I will work on it some more. Because it's not done yet. It has missing features, it has bugs, it has things I want to do with it.
This is specially important for free and open source projects. Maintainers get overwhelmed. Starting a project is fun but maintaining it is like having a pet parrot, requiring constant attention, feeding, cleaning, and who will outlive you.
That attitude is not sustainable. Imagine you were a hobby carpenter making tables. Would you say "tables are never finished, they are abandoned"? No, you would say "this table is done, I will make another one if I want to".
That is a healthy attitude. This is not religion, and this is not a job. If I start a new project I will finish it, or I will abandon it, but I will not create projects that will require my attention forever.