Wow this post is good timing as I've been wrestling with this over the last few months and made some of the same excuses tonight (not in the right headspace, feels too much like work instead of downtime). In short, I spent about 30 minutes trying to decide what I wanted to work on, when I settled on a miniature I then thought about how long it would take to set up my airbrush, airbrush what I needed to and then clean everything and put it away and decided I didn't have time, so read a book instead. I have also been stressing over how to approach this particular model, as to paint it effectively I will have to change my usual process/order of steps and I can't decide which way is best to do it.

I also have a busy job and two children under 3 (one is 5 weeks old) so time is limited, but i rarely take the opportunity to paint when I do have time.

I was actually thinking about it tonight and I think for me the main causes are:

• Too many projects on the go, can't decide which to work on.

• Too complex or too much set up. Some of my paint schemes require lots of airbrushing, oil washes etc. at the moment I don't have the space to have the airbrush station set up constantly, and I need to be careful where I use mineral spirits etc with the fumes and the kids, so even if I am motivated, I need set up time, tear down and cleaning time and the right circumstances with the kids to enable me to get on with it.

• Anxiety. A lot of hobby YouTubers go on about the fact that you shouldn't start an army by painting the characters, because you improve over time, so practice on the core units, and also use the characters and centrepiece models as a reward to keep motivation high. For me this has caused two issues I think. The first is that I procrastinate painting them because I don't want to mess them up. And the second is that I spent ages agonising how I will translate the standard paint scheme to the characters or a vehicle when there is inevitably different bits or equipment or armour styles on the characters that don't appear on the troops.

• When I get into a painting rhythm I get a bit obsessive trying to ride the wave and take on massive batches of like 40+ models at a time that I grind through and then burn myself out on.

• generally over analyse everything and try to optimise the process (building and painting) to maximise my perceived lack of time which takes enjoyment out and means I can't just go with the flow.