How to Finish Everything You Start

by Jan Yager

too many of us are doing too much at once which is leading to the unfinished tasks or projects syndrome that led you to pick up this book.

The second is something I call “distractionitis.” People who suffer from this are too easily distracted and are effortlessly pulled away from one task, to do something else.

If you are having a hard time starting a project or a task: Remind yourself that only by starting will you be able to finish. Is there something you really want to do after you finish this project? Only by starting it, and completing it, can you go on to the next challenge.

Try the “just a little” approach. Tell yourself, “If I just spend 10 minutes on this project, I can do something else.” Most of the time, if you let yourself spend just 10 minutes, you will get “into” the project or task and 10 minutes will become an hour or however long it takes to make progress on this task or project.

Delegate. Maybe you are reluctant to start a project because you should not be doi...

Review all the behaviors and attitudes that you will learn about as possible reasons for failing to finish something and apply it to starting instead. That includes fear of success, fear of failure, procrastination, perfectionism, etc.

Take this short 10-question self-evaluation to determine where you stand on the all-important time management skill of finishing. On a piece of paper, or on your computer, answer each question with a yes or no. Do you currently have at least one task, project, or even relationship concern that is unfinished? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Do you have to ask for extensions to any deadlines at work? Yes No Sometimes Do you ever feel as if you take longer to finish a task than it requires? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Have you or anyone you work for or that is close to you ever called you a perfectionist? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Do you take enough time to do the necessary background research or assessing to make sure what you are working on right now is the best use of your time? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Is there even one task, project, or relationship that is unfinished that is important to you but not necessarily key to your job or others that remains unfinished? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Do you feel as if you currently have too much to do at once? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Do you procrastinate? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Do you daily check your smartphone more than necessary for your job or personal relationships? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes Do you say “yes” when you wish you said “no”? Yes ⃞ No ⃞ Sometimes

Finishing is an essential skill for those who want to get things done and to be more successful and productive.

Your reputation at work depends on you finishing what you are asked to do and completing it on time within the agreed-upon deadline, whenever possible.

22 behaviors, beliefs, or bad habits that stop us from finishing what we start. Fear of failure Fear of success Perfectionism Fear of completion Procrastination (covered in depth in chapter 4) Poor planning Poor pacing Setting an unrealistic deadline in the first place Taking on too many tasks (another vital reason that will also get its own chapter 3) Disorganization Emotional turmoil Anger Working under pressure backfires Allowing yourself to stop at a certain point and temporarily quit “Out of sight, out of mind”—a task is not looming in front of you Starting a new task even before finishing the one you were working on TV, videogaming, social media, the Internet, or other distractions Having a problem with lateness Devaluing yourself or your goal Overvaluing yourself or your goal Failing to plan for, or allow, interruptions Being too inconsistent in your effort

If you don’t finish a task or project, you can’t fail. This way of thinking, which could be conscious or unconscious, may be preventing you from finishing.

Fear of failure is such a typical reason to quit or leave something unfinished that I want to offer some possible solutions for dealing with this belief: 1 Get the training and experience that will give you confidence.

2Imagine the worst consequence of finishing and see yourself overcoming it.

whatever it is that you are failing to finish, if you can see yourself dealing with criticism, or whatever it is that is your worst fear that might come from finishing, you can get the courage to push forward, and finish.

3See failure as a badge of courage, change how you view it.

You might succeed with whatever it is that you are delaying finishing, but the key point is that you’ll never know unless you have the courage to keep going and get it out there.

4Be realistic about whatever it is that is not working in whatever you are putting off and make those changes.

Instead of fearing failure, critically reassess your task or project and, if you think there is reason that you might fail, make those changes so success is more likely.

5Consider failing as a training ground for succeeding.

6If you do not finish, you bring out the very failure that you fear.

Quitting or failing to finish is a type of failure, perhaps the worst kind since it is failure by default. If you want to stop, and consciously make that choice, that is one thing. But if you simply cease to try, or quit by passively shelving something or even someone, you are not being proactive about your career or your life.

Those are the potential deep-rooted causes of a fear of success, but it might be more on the surface,

Sadly, most of the time, delays bring about the opposite of success: condemnation, criticism, and disappointment.

The perfectionist redoes and redoes something again and again trying to get it “just right.” Rewriting an e-mail so it has the right information or tone, or revising a pitch so it’s more effective, are not time wasters.

It is key to recognize that it is those kinds of unrealistic standards that are making you afraid to finish.

1Realize that you are a perfectionist.

2Accept that no one, including you, is perfect.

you rewrite an e-mail a dozen times even though it was fine after the second rewrite. Or you want to write the perfect blog but by reworking it beyond the excellent result you already achieved you delay finishing it and miss the opportunity to comment on a timely issue.

3Learn to be comfortable with praise or accepting of feedback that might be negative.

Perfectionists who keep going so that they fail to finish may be afraid of getting criticized for their less-than-perfect efforts or, if they are used to being imperfect, may be uncomfortable with the subsequent praise that follow finishing. Work on being at ease with either type of feedback situation.

4Readjust your standards to strive for attainable excellence rather than ...

setting your sights on excellent achievements that are attainable could free a perfectionist up from the unworkable standards to underly ...

5Delegate or partner wi...

6Remind yourself that perfectionism has its consequences.

Parents who are pushing their children or teens, or even judging their grown children, by perfectionist standards need to realize how they may be causing deep-seated feelings of insecurity as they impose unattainable perfectionistic benchmarks on their offspring.

In personal relationships, applying perfectionistic standards to your friends or romantic partners can also sabotage what could be a wonderful connection. Accept imperfection in those you care about as well as yourself.

Poor self-esteem and insecurity may be at the core of a fear of completion that stops you from finishing.

Your fear of completion might be tied to a fear that you will be bored when you finish a particular task or project, especially if it is a major, all-consuming one, you worry about what you will do next. A way to work around that fear of boredom, as long as you avoid the doing-too-much-at-once trap, is to have at least one task or project lined up that you will do when this commitment is completed.

Procrastination is a huge time waster that stops someone from finishing. But just saying that, or acknowledging that, does not really help.

Poor planning is part of what I refer to as the 4Ps of delay and inefficiency – procrastination, perfectionism, poor planning, and poor pacing.

poor planning usually boils down to underestimating the time something will take.

The grave consequences of underestimating how long an IT project might take is dramatically highlighted in the book, Death March by Edward Yourdon. Yourdon defines death march as a software project whereby “the schedule has been compressed to less than half the amount of time estimated by a rational estimating process; thus, the project that would normally be expected to take 12 calendar months is now required to be delivered in six months or less.”

One obvious reason is that if the project manager – possibly you – told someone how long a project might take, whether it’s a longer-term project, like a book, or even writing a business plan or doing an evaluation of a program, you might consciously or unconsciously fear that the work will be given to someone else, who agrees to a much shorter time frame.

Another scenario is that when you agreed to a certain deadline, you had less on your plate at the time. You thought it would be smooth sailing to plan that you needed x amount of time to deliver y.

Promise less, deliver more. Keep expectations low or lower and come in ahead of those expectations so you look like a super performer rather than an underachiever.

Planning should be conscious and considered. It should not be something that you pick out of thin air because it sounds like a nice time frame to commit to.

There is another rule in time management. Whatever time you think something is going to take, add 25 percent to give yourself enough time to complete a project on time. Sometimes you may even want to add 50 percent.

pacing on a daily or regular basis can make or break not just whether you finish something in a timely fashion but in what shape you finish something physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Remember to consider the daily pacing to see realistically just how much work you can get done in any given day and the longer-term pacing, of how long a project or task is going to take.

Doing too much at once is the biggest challenge to managing your time and getting things done.