How I plan to stop quitting projects and actually finish them
This topic has to be made solution oriënted since it is a goal to get to a place where I am not all over the place. By just stating the problem in the title it would feel like I am complaining, which I am not. I am looking for a good solution.
Basically I want to go away from a place where I don’t complete projects:
To this:
I need to become more strict with my time and attention so I can finish my todo lists, or at least make some progress. Sometimes I need to say no to starting a certain project, because it’s not the right time to build it.
This happens a lot to me when I ask other people to help me on a project and it’s respectable.
Recently I had to do it only once in the past two months, because I just couldn’t dedicate the time to their cause. It was a project with a vague starting plan and without any traction. It would feel right to spend my time helping plan the project and figuring out it’s direction while I have so much other stuff to do.
The problem with starting new projects
I think an average person can only focus his best work on one project at a time. It’s okay if other projects with similar goals and needs are being planned in the background and being worked on in your free time, but when it feels overwhelming you should focus on the most important work in your life.
At my internship I found myself having a lot of thoughts about other projects and the future of the project that I was currently working on. I fixed this by writing them down on a piece of paper in a small A5 sized notebook. This helped a lot to keep the focus at the work at hand without losing a good creative idea.
Why bother finishing projects?
This book helped me a lot, answering that question:
https://www.bol.com/nl/p/50-succesmodellen/9200000078874478/
It’s a small book that has useful digestable information in it. It answers the most basic questions people have about their lives and helps them to make the correct decisions.
On page 16 and 17 it says something about “how to keep a good overview of everything that you do”.
I’d have to say that in my life there recently was a point where I could not introduce myself and all the things that I was doing to someone I just met. This is probably an indicator that you lack focus in the work that you do.
The end quote is really important:
Always complete your projects, even unsuccesful ones.
You could complete them to a different level than the level you expected to finish it on, but you always have to finish them in some way to learn from it.
