To latch onto that analogy, the point of homework is to make sure you learn the topic.
So, if it weren't mandatory, handing it in isn't all that important as long as you're doing it. Indeed, in grad school, there was very little graded homework and most was just assigned with solutions given for anyone who wanted to do it.
So, to bring the overly stretched analogy back to projects, I think you shouldn't feel like you need to "finish" something if it meets enough of the goals you set for yourself.
Eg I spent months working on projects like custom OS's and game engines. But as the nature of those kinds of projects is to have endless room for growth, I just drew the line at some point that I had learned and done enough and could just drop them in whatever potentially buggy state they were in.
So, if it weren't mandatory, handing it in isn't all that important as long as you're doing it. Indeed, in grad school, there was very little graded homework and most was just assigned with solutions given for anyone who wanted to do it.
So, to bring the overly stretched analogy back to projects, I think you shouldn't feel like you need to "finish" something if it meets enough of the goals you set for yourself.
Eg I spent months working on projects like custom OS's and game engines. But as the nature of those kinds of projects is to have endless room for growth, I just drew the line at some point that I had learned and done enough and could just drop them in whatever potentially buggy state they were in.