I love my job as a developer, I think it's the one of the world's most most fulfilling occupations but I procrastinate with personal projects (even paid ones). Is this a problem for anyone else, and how do you beat this?

Extremely hard for me too! Especially with my company's flex scheduling, I always favor getting hours in for work instead of personal endeavors. I try to set aside 2-4 hours on Sundays.

I use the pomodoro method alot to fight through procrastination.

I procrastinate my entire live with personal dev projects.

Thanks for the comments so far, I'd welcome more suggestions.

As it happens, I've just finished a set of designs at 2am which took about 3 hours to get done all told.

If I'd have done this at 9 am I'd have had a much better Sunday!

Find someone close to you (a sibling, a relative, a very good friend; NOT a significant one*) and get them a bit excited about your personal project. They won't stop asking you about it and you'll feel compelled to finish it.

* your side project is actually competing with your significant other for your time, which may get nasty quickly.

I'm in the same boat and always seem to get distracted with the personal projects, I have tried to do it after work or at the weekends, find myself getting of course with other things to learn or different directions or best practices