Finishing a Medium-Sized Thing

by M

I thought I should start writing, hoping to learn to finish things. However, soon I realized that the goal itself can never be achieved because of the nature of the problem. It’s like trying to unpack sealed scissors with scissors. In another sense, it’s the old and nasty halting problem smirking at me every time I try to plan for my life.

A few days ago I noticed that I actually can manage to finish small things (e.g. writing emails, doodling, playing games, etc.) . And when it comes to larger things, they usually happen to have reasonable deadlines to deal with and are often forced on me (e.g. theses, reviews, etc.). My problem is more accurately put, finishing medium-sized things (MSTs).

“What is an MST I can do to learn the lessons I need?” I asked myself. In a spontaneous chain of events, N and I decided to write Medium blogs (polysemy/pun wasn’t intended). So Medium blogs became my MST. Here I summarize the lessons I’ve learned so far.

Strong commitment: The small and large things come with their usual motivations and/or responsibilities. Whereas MSTs are done usually for fun. Well I don’t think I am a particularly funny person in general. So I decided to commit to doing them and guess what… It works.

Side Effects/Perks: As mentioned in the previous blog, my english is bad. Every time I start writing I feel like I’m finally taking a constructive step for improving my writing. And that’s a big motivation that I didn’t see from the get go. I realized that MSTs feel a lot less painful if you believe that doing them has other perks.

Starting a few hours before midnight: I think the best time to work on an MST is a few hours before going to bed. This way I hit 3 targets with one stone: 1- Setting a natural deadline (helps with finishing) 2-Regulating the sleep cycle 3- Ending the day feeling satisfied.

Well that’s enough for now. I will definitely write more about this in the future.