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A little bit each day. Some days it feels like nothing was accomplished, but getting back to it the day after, things are always a little different than they were at the end of two days before. And, sometimes, if you can figure out how to screw off a lot, you can get a lot done afterwards.
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I'd say, that depends on why your motivation drops in this project as the remedy depends on the malady. However, taking a break from (shouldn't be a problem if things thing drags on forever anyway) is often helpful.
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Getting started is often the most difficult part. Just sit down and start and you'll probably get into it.
I'm in a similar situation. I started a media player application and it got to the point of being good enough for me for daily use. There are still plenty of bells and whistles I'd like to add, but I'm not really motivated enough to do it now. Guess I must follow my own advice and just sit down and code. The other option is to do a little bit each day until the extra features are done.
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It must be nice to have a choice and not be on a time limit. As someone who has written software since the 70's and had my own small software business for the last 30 years i dont have this luxury lol, but on projects where i feel stalled and stop enjoying it as much, i just bat on and try get it properly completed as soon as possible, knowing i'll feel much better when it's behind me, rather than having that 'pissed off' feeling every day.
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For me, it's self psychology. Convincing myself I'll feel better when it's done helps get me started. It's always ends up to be so. The release of subconscious guilt, possibly. Gotta talk yourself into it is the bottom line.
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"One thing" is probably the best I've ever heard. Momentum is paramount.
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I have learned to just lay things down and come back to them later (or even never, telling me how important or not a project is to me). Start something new. It's my personality type to adventure seek, so new projects are always a siren song at the end of a lengthy old project. I know this is not what you wanted to hear - me either, frankly, but making peace with my ENTP also helps me leverage my secondary traits to boost my flow state for longer, so there is that. Have a look at what the folks at PersonalityHacker have to say about your personality type using the car model.
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Get older.
I had that problem when I was in my 20's through my early 40's. The early parts of a project were fun because they were new. I liked the middle parts because I was coding and debugging, watching the end product start doing what it was supposed to. I didn't like the last part, because it was always the Moment of Truth. The code had to handle the edge cases, the user who did things I wasn't expecting, etc. What started out so wonderfully met the grim sandpaper of reality. Since I'm The Great Procrastinator, this phase of things really dragged.
In my 50's and now that I've turned 60 there's a curious satisfaction in completing a task, and I don't procrastinate nearly as much. Part of it stems from the fact that I know when I go back to this in the future, I won't have a mess to deal with. In recent years I've been saddled with maintaining a lot of others' code, and that's not a lot of fun. The other part is that given our current workload, there's always several new things waiting. The sooner I finish an existing task, the sooner I can look at the new stuff.
Software Zen: delete this;
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The Simplest Technique is the Pomodoro Technique.
If you are like me, getting started is the hardest part. You will get "busy" making lists, rewriting lists, or being distracted.
This is a TIMER technique. Basically I set the timer for 5 minutes or 10 Minutes (sometimes higher). I use a smaller number if I am VERY unmotivated (2 minutes). The requirement is that before I hit the timer, I load everything up.
If I need the motivation to even load the VMs, I will set a short timer and do that.
I have a webpage I wrote for it. As well as a phone app (count down timer).
Here's what I find. It's all about getting started.
SOME of it is a fear that I am doing it wrong. (And now I tell myself that may be true, but I will adapt once I PROVE IT)
Many times, I have to do a 10 minute task, and I am rolling. Some times, I trudge through it.
When the timer goes off. I get a break (I use a complex timer to time a break, if needed). But if I find that I "distracted myself" with something else, I reset the timer and start again, focusing on the task at hand.
This combined with Sander's solid comments on breaking it down into small enough chunks SHOULD get you through it.
I would be curious to hear how it works for you.
FWIW, the name comes from the old (Pomodoro) Tomato Timer on the stove being used.
I will use it for cleaning the house, and the garage, and MANY chores I don't look forward to doing (My daughter would add here: playing with her, petting the dog, having a normal human interaction, LOL)
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Small bites like Chris said and my complete off the wall method
The WebSite "Dream in Code" sparked my unscientific process
At bedtime I try to visualize how to code a function or procedure
YES I know you know how but when I wake up I code that small snippet of code
AND feel motivated to move on to the next lines
You can send the code to me and have an absolute laugh when I reply with VB.Net code
Just a novice compared to yourself and all the talented coders here
My triple Bypass last week has me looking for a small project perhaps time to learn C#
so I can run with the BIG dogs
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C# isn't so hard to learn if you have a VB.net background and you've maybe tinkered with java or javascript before - just enough to kind of feel out the general syntax of it.
The language is essentially functionally the same** but with different syntax. The runtime libraries are the same (with the exception of some things VB.net adds).
It's really just a different dialect of what you've been doing all along.
** C# does support things like iterators that I believe VB.NET does not, but for most things it's the same functionality.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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C# can also make an event from a non-void delegate -- which is rarely useful, but when it is...
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You have motivational burnout.
If it's not crunch time then a week or two's holiday. It's great for motivation recuperation. Just make sure that you do NOTHING to do with work during that time, no calls to work, no calls from work, no taking work away with you.
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What works for me in such cases:
Find a new really exciting project BUT have the discipline to only start working on it AFTER the current/old one is finished.
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This isn't actually a motivational technique, but whenever I find myself doing this it's usually because there's something distasteful about the remaining chunk. Often that means I have yet to find an elegant solution or structure to apply, or maybe it requires contacting a lot of people to get missing information, or maybe it's just boring.
What works best for me is to resolve to power through it, holding my nose if necessary, get it done and turn my back on it. No reward, celebration, nor admiration. Make it history.
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I fixed an issue for a client last week.
Worked well on my machine, but not so well in production.
Save a time, for example 08:00, and see it change to 10:00 (the application runs on UTC in production while I'm on +02:00).
TIME ZONES!!! 
Impossible to debug, or so I thought!
I remember having a similar issue some years ago.
However, times have changed (pun intended!).
In the Chrome developer tools, go to the three dots -> More tools -> Sensors and change "No override" to the time zone of your choosing 
Didn't make my bug less annoying, but it did make it A LOT easier to debug!
I'm a bit less scared of time zones now 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Impossible to debug, or so I thought!
It was never impossible. At worst it required using 2 computing devices to run your client and server on different time zones.
Sander Rossel wrote: In the Chrome developer tools, go to the three dots -> More tools -> Sensors and change "No override" to the time zone of your choosing
This looks a lot easier though.
PS For anyone else who clicked the menu item repeatedly wondering why nothing was happening, it loads something into the bottom most pane of the dev tools.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Dan Neely wrote: At worst it required using 2 computing devices to run your client and server on different time zones.
As I said, impossible
I was making a change, adding A LOT of logging statements, pushing to Azure and running there while inspecting the logs.
Of course it's not impossible, but tedious at best.
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So you can play Wordle earlier than me.
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Is that the secret? I changed my computer's timezone to NZ to see what would happen, but Wordle wasn't fooled!
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I don't change any timezone on my computer. I live in India, and play it when it opens up for me. Usually I play at around 6:00 am my time.
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I recalled that you live in India, but I thought you were also implying that Wordle would be fooled by changing the browser's timezone. I hadn't tried that, but I did try changing my computer's timezone and changing my VPN to Auckland--no luck. So I wonder what they're keying on. Maybe they have a cookie that knows I'm trying to be cute.
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I remember that a resident of UK had solved Wordle within around 6 am India time, before i could. I wondered whether he used some VPN functionality to change his time zone. But as you say, Wordle cannot be fooled like this. So he must have kept awake till midnight his time, which is 4.5 hours behind us, and solved it.
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I think mine opens up earlier than yours anyway.
I can play again in 15 hours, but you only posted seven hours ago.
So 00:00 for me, and I'm usually still awake at that time
I'm waiting for you to post the first one though 
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Mine opens up in 11.5 hours. I don't stay awake till midnight to play mine. I play usually at 6 am India time.
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