Side projects happen in fragments — an evening here, an hour there. The thing that kills them isn't the size of the fragments; it's the cost of restarting. Reducing that cost is most of what makes a project finishable.

End sessions deliberately

The worst way to stop is mid-thought when you run out of time. You return to an unfinished change, no memory of the plan, and half an hour goes on reconstructing where you were.

Ten minutes before you stop: commit what works, and write two lines about what's next. That's it. Those two lines are worth more than the extra ten minutes of building.

Leave yourself a clear next step

Not "continue the auth work". Something you could start immediately: "add the password reset endpoint — the email sending already works, it needs the token table and the two routes."

The more specific it is, the faster you're productive next time.

Keep the brief current

The project brief you paste into new conversations is also your own memory. Update it when a decision changes. Coming back after two weeks, it's the difference between an hour of orientation and five minutes.

session-close.txt
Here's what I did this session: <paste the diff or describe>

Write me a short handover for my next session:
- What state the project is in now — what works, what's half-done.
- The exact next step, specific enough to start immediately.
- Anything I was in the middle of thinking about that I'll lose.
- Anything I should check before continuing.

Under 150 words. I'm writing this for myself in two weeks.

Start with a small win

Open the next session by finishing something small and completing it. It rebuilds context faster than reading does, and it means the session produces something even if you're interrupted.

Don't start what you can't finish

A ninety-minute session isn't the time to begin restructuring how data flows. Match the task to the time you have; save the big changes for when you have a run at them.

Commit at the end of every session, even mid-feature, even messily. An uncommitted working tree is the thing that makes you dread coming back.