How to finish everything you start
Published on
Do you struggle to finish projects too? Are you always starting new things but hardly ever finishing anything? That’s a shame, because seeing results and enjoying the fruits of your work is very satisfying. Fortunately, you aren’t alone, and there are plenty of strategies to solve this.
It seems like a difficult problem, but if you return to the basics, the things you need to solve are quite simple. Strictly speaking, you can reduce the problem space to three fundamental points.
These points create the conditions for finishing a project.
- Hold off new projects, or prioritize them properly, with a fixed allocation of time and a fixed place in your calendar.
- Define projects around the smallest possible intermediate deliveries. This lets you continually finish pieces with standalone results, reinforcing the idea of finishing things and benefiting from the results.
- Allocate time to every project, with a place in your calendar to work on it.
These three points aren’t enough on their own. Everyone knows the above is good to do, but implementing these principles successfully requires a strategy and a set of habits. The finer points are always a little harder, but the more of them you apply, the more results you’ll achieve.
Finish projects by limiting the inflow
First, make sure no new projects are added. This can be difficult, especially with new projects within your company. There are many ways to hold off new projects, though. The most important thing is to explain to the person asking why you’re holding this project off for now. Give them a way forward too: what are the conditions, or when can they come back with a new project? Thinking along with them and offering a workable alternative can sometimes be a very easy way to create a win-win situation.
Besides other people trying to throw things over the fence, we take on many projects ourselves. This can be even harder. You see something fun to develop or want to take up a new sport, without realizing that saying yes to it means saying no to your ongoing projects.
Keeping a list of all your major commitments and reviewing it when you’re about to start something new can help.
It can also help to map these tasks onto a framework that gives you a clearer overview. One example is plotting urgency against importance. That also lets you move tasks around and reconsider whether something really matters.
Finish projects by maintaining focus
Another important part of finishing tasks is maintaining focus. However pleasant it can be to wander occasionally, focus gets things done and into a state where you can finish them. There are several possible approaches here too.
Personally, I like working in blocks in the morning. This makes it easy to get started before resistance sets in or the outside world starts asking things of you.
But how do you develop focus? It’s something you need to train, certainly without asking too much of yourself. Every time you work on something with your full attention, you’re training your focus.
The best way to do this is to practice with small blocks of time and briefly celebrate that you managed it. That’s how you build a new pattern.
You don’t even have to do very much, or get something finished, as long as you’re consistent. If you start each day by writing 100 words, for example, you’ll have a complete blog post in about ten days.
You’re also training your ability to work attentively on one task at a time and finish it.
The game of starting again and again
I’ve touched on this already, but most of finishing things consists of continually starting the tasks you need to do. Each day only has 24 hours. At some point, you have no choice but to put something down and start again later.
The trick is being able to pick it back up without too much friction.
How does this work? Often, keeping something up for a week is easy, but it soon becomes boring or you don’t feel like it. These are things you need to solve for yourself. Fortunately, you aren’t alone, and there are many tools you can use.
The first tool is realizing that a large project or task isn’t really so difficult. You can always divide it into manageable steps. Take writing a book again. A book of 200–300 pages sounds intimidating, but you can break it down effectively. First, outline all your chapters. Divide a chapter into paragraphs, then divide a paragraph into main and subordinate clauses.
In other words, every step is manageable.
The next step is making it enjoyable and easy to start those small, manageable steps. This is where building a routine comes in. Entire books have been devoted to it, but it boils down to training a particular pattern.
You train this pattern by connecting it to a fixed moment in your day, keeping it small and celebrating successes. For example, you could decide to write for ten minutes every day after lunch.
You can do more, of course, but every time you complete those ten minutes, you’re training a new pattern and therefore succeeding.