Great post. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

I think you're probably not doing projects to help people, but instead projects that you think would be fun to do. If you start with a burning itch, or a person that needs help, you will probably find it much easier to stay on task. This is not to say that there's anything wrong with exploring interesting technologies, or thinking about "the right way" to solve certain problems you find interesting... It's just to say that when there's a burning need the interesting diversions tend to fall away.

Hope that helps :)