You started posting the side project when it had all of you. Now showing the work is one more job on a thing that already doesn't get enough hours.
Building in public means you share the side project while you're still making it. It wears you out when the update takes the hour the project needed. You sit down to work and you write the post. The public part was supposed to keep you honest. Now it's the thing you dread. Opening the update feels heavier than opening the project.
You spend the hour on the update
Say the project is a small recipe app. That's a made-up example, so swap in the thing you're actually building. It's Thursday, after dinner. You have about an hour before you're done for the night. The next step is a screen where someone can save a recipe. You already know what that screen needs.
You open a blank note instead. The note says what you tried this week and what's next. You add a sentence so the people following along know you're still working. The hour ends. The save screen looks the same as last Thursday. The note is three paragraphs long. The project didn't move. The post did.
Do the next piece of the project before you post
You won't always feel like posting. You don't have to post before you work. Do the small step in the work first. On that recipe app, the next step is the save screen, built before anyone hears about it. If the hour is short, spend it on that screen.
You had one free hour after dinner, you spent it writing the post, and the save screen didn't change. Spend the next free hour on the save screen, not the post. Don't say the screen is done until you've built it.
Post the change, or close the draft
When something actually changed, show that. Write a few lines: the save screen works, and here's what it does. If nothing changed, close the draft. A "still at it" post uses the only hour you had for the project to prove you showed up.
People following the project can wait a week for that post. Building in public still helps when you have a real change to show. The week that wears you out is the one where you post the plan and the project is unchanged.
How this looks in Motivus
In this example, you add the save screen you said you'd finish this week. Invite one friend. They don't have to build it with you. They have their own week. They can see whether that step got done, and they can cheer when it does. No nagging. You don't owe them a written update to prove the hour happened. The progress is already there for them to see.
Creative side projects · Start again after a miss · Body doubling won't finish your side project