A couple possibilities. If you really enjoy doing these things for their own sake, you can treat your side projects as a hobby and stop beating yourself up about it. Spend all the time you want going down the rabbit hole, and enjoy that it provides a chance to think deeply, making something as close to perfection as possible, and be fully present in the experience of creating.
The other approach I'd suggest is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Start treating your side projects like a real business, and create some process that connects real incentives to them. There are harder and softer ways to approach this. You can quit your job and now you have the focus in your side projects that you need to ship to get paid. You could also keep your day job and set up some automatic funds transfers into a semi-liquid asset like a CD or 401k, such that you leave yourself enough to cover the basic expenses, but so that the marginal income from your side project becomes significant enough to be motivational. Revenue is a great feedback loop getting you to focus on what matters, and letting go of what really doesn't.
You could also bring in another person, perhaps as a business partner, or simply have one of your friends agree to call you up once a week and have you give them a report. The key here is to clarify and draw attention in your mind to the work that you're avoiding, and the outcome that you want. In this process, it's important to vividly color the positive outcome be emphasizing the real changes it will create in your life.
For example:
"This week, instead of shipping my product which will enable me to quit working for other people, spend more time with my family, own the high-performance german cars I've always wanted, and visit 20+ countries a year, I instead spend 6.5 hours working on a sort algorithm, and 5.4 hours fiddling with the presentation styles on the country-list drop-down menu in my app."
I used all of the techniques above when I was starting my first company, and they made a big difference in helping me focus on what was important in getting to market, and not OCD-ing out on things that were, ultimately, minor details.
The other approach I'd suggest is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Start treating your side projects like a real business, and create some process that connects real incentives to them. There are harder and softer ways to approach this. You can quit your job and now you have the focus in your side projects that you need to ship to get paid. You could also keep your day job and set up some automatic funds transfers into a semi-liquid asset like a CD or 401k, such that you leave yourself enough to cover the basic expenses, but so that the marginal income from your side project becomes significant enough to be motivational. Revenue is a great feedback loop getting you to focus on what matters, and letting go of what really doesn't.
You could also bring in another person, perhaps as a business partner, or simply have one of your friends agree to call you up once a week and have you give them a report. The key here is to clarify and draw attention in your mind to the work that you're avoiding, and the outcome that you want. In this process, it's important to vividly color the positive outcome be emphasizing the real changes it will create in your life.
For example: "This week, instead of shipping my product which will enable me to quit working for other people, spend more time with my family, own the high-performance german cars I've always wanted, and visit 20+ countries a year, I instead spend 6.5 hours working on a sort algorithm, and 5.4 hours fiddling with the presentation styles on the country-list drop-down menu in my app."
I used all of the techniques above when I was starting my first company, and they made a big difference in helping me focus on what was important in getting to market, and not OCD-ing out on things that were, ultimately, minor details.