I don't want to come across as putting down the author's work, but for the sake of everyone else, I want to reframe the definition of "long project".

This would be a nice post if it was titled "Strategies for Quick Projects". I'm on year 8 of what is likely a life-long project (at a pace that is doubling annually). That's a fairly long project, but far from the longest. The Manhattan Project, the Human Genome Project, the Apollo project. The Shuttle program. The National Cathedral. These are long projects. They're big too. There are other long projects which might be considered "small". Learning violin is a long, small project. Cataloging all the species of flora and fauna on an island is a long, small-ish project. Cataloging all the microbiota on that island would be a medium-big project. Cataloging all the microbiota on a continent would outstrip the Human Genome Project by a factor of 100.