When I have something I am interested in doing (side project, bigger blog post, or whatever) I just get out a piece of paper, write down the basic premise, and let it percolate in my mind a little bit. I do something else, and I've found if you are truly passionate about it that you will not stop thinking about it. Even if you're eating, out and about somewhere, or doing something totally unrelated, my brain won't stop thinking about it.

I let it sit on the "back burner" and collect different ideas, trains of thought, and try to visualize what I want it to look like, or the outcome I am trying to make happen.

Then after a couple days (I like to wait about 3-5 days) I sit down late at night, about 9-10pm when everyone is asleep. I get coffee, a pack of cigarettes, my headphones with pandora playing and go at it all night and generally crash when I think I have a good "skeleton" of what I want to do.

Then after that, you have the basic outline of what you want and keep iterating from there.

Hope this helped. Again, this is just what works for me. Best of luck on your project!

It's also important to switch off between changing focus (ex. from one project to the next, take at least an hour break).

I reckon your biggest problem at the moment is context switching. I'd suggest you allocate your time explicitly (first learn and then do - instead of trying to build something useful while still learning).

Find something that's exciting for you to create. Create it using whatever tool you want to learn. Don't worry too much about whether you're building it The Right Way yet. You will be forced to learn enough to get the job done.

Then repeat N times for desired level of expertise. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Asymptot...

Also, is your lack of focus really just procrastination?

According to pg:

"If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you'll have terrible problems with procrastination. You'll have to force yourself to work, and when you resort to that the results are distinctly inferior."

http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Another theory I like: procrastinators are perfectionists and are worried about disappointing themselves or are dreading the goal of perfection.

Anyhow... back to work.

http://edweissman.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/how-do-i-achieve-...

Plan - Outline - Allocate limited time for Sub-Tasks - EXECUTE!

Works just like this little BASIC program:

    10 LET T = 10
    20 LET N = 0
    30 IF N < T THEN GOTO 40 ELSE GOTO 70
    40 LET N = N + 1
    50 PRINT N
    60 GOTO 30
    70 PRINT "Positive Feedback!"
    80 PRINT "All Sub-Tasks are done."
    90 PRINT "Your main task is complete."
    10 PRINT "Complete your next project!"

- 25 min non stop work (try e.ggtimer.com for a timer to keep track)

- 5 min off (free time)

- After 3 or so pomodoro's, reward yourself with a 15-20 minute break and repeat

This technique has been very effective in everything from writing my master's thesis (which I hated) to learning web dev frameworks (such as RoR).