My focus and motivation is something that I think about a lot. At work I am very focused and motivated. My work is project based and deadline oriented, and so I have no trouble focusing in that environment. My colleagues, and the fact that I work on "real" problems motivates me. I just can't transfer that easily to when I code in my spare time - crucially - on something that I see through to completion.

for example one of my side projects is a webapp I have been building since september 2009, at which time I worked on it very intensely. Then I left it for a good few months, to only pick it up again when I was reminded that the problem it would solve was still a very real one - this spurred me on to work on it for another three months or so. I haven't picked it up again in the last two months.

I think I need real people around me to make the problem appear much more real, and keep me motivated. I think that is my rationale for this approach.