In this excelent blog post explores The Art of Finishing. He concludes with some solid advice I can take into my next project.
“As long as you’re working on something, you feel productive. Jumping from project to project gives you a constant stream of “new project energy,” which can feel more invigorating than the grind of finishing a single project.”
I love this new project energy. It generally tends to coincide with those times when I really should be working on something else or have little time to start anything new. The excitement is real.
“unfinished projects carry a mental weight. They linger in the back of your mind, quietly draining your mental energy and enthusiasm.”
But as someone with a folder littered with unifinished projects I can attest to the weight carry. I’m forever wondering when I’ll pick them back up or what I need to do next to move the project forward. The reality is, that many of these projects are finished. They weren’t started with a view to being long lived. They were started to explore a curiosity. By not declaring them done I’ve let them lagnuish.
“we learn different lessons from finishing projects than we do from starting them.”
Source: The Art of Finishing