I have thirteen apps on the App Store and roughly twice that many projects on disk. The gap between those two numbers is the honest story of this year.
Building an app is the fun part and, these days, the fast part. What takes the time is everything after the code compiles: screenshots at four device sizes, a privacy manifest that matches what the app really does, an age rating questionnaire, a support URL that has to exist, localised descriptions, keywords, a build that passes upload validation, then review. None of it is hard. All of it is friction, and friction is what kills side projects.
The trap I keep falling into is starting the next thing while the last one sits at ninety-five percent. A finished app that never gets submitted is worth exactly nothing to the person who might have used it. I have a folder full of that lesson.
A few things that have actually helped:
Treat the store listing as part of the build, not as paperwork afterwards. If the screenshots do not exist, the app is not done.
Ship an honest 1.0 instead of a perfect 1.4. Every app on my list got better after real people used it, never before.
Keep a written list of what is genuinely blocked versus what is merely unfinished. At midnight those feel identical. They are not.
Say no to the new idea until the current one is live. I am still bad at this one.
Two apps are sitting in review right now. Several more are finished and waiting on me to do the boring part.
If something I built was useful to you, a tip here goes to the Apple developer fee and the servers behind the apps that need one. It also buys the evening where I do the boring part instead of starting something new.