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.

People who suffer from this are too easily distracted and are effortlessly pulled away from one task, to do something else.

you can’t finish a project unless you start,

Remind yourself that only by starting will you be able to finish.

Only by starting it, and completing it, can you go on to the next challenge.

Try the “just a little” approach.

You just might be better off passing along the task to someone else.

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.

How to Finish Everything You Start teaches you how to complete more tasks and projects than ever before, empowering you to get more done.

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

The sad part of this fear is that by failing to finish, you bring about 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.

List at least one, or up to three, reasons that you might be delaying.

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

The only problem with taking time off to do something that you need to do – when it turns into procrastination – is when you cannot switch gears and get back to your required tasks in a timely fashion.

if you want to finish everything you start — at least those things that you selectively decide you want to finish — you need to embrace deadlines as a positive thing, rather than something to be dreaded.

Reframing how you view deadlines may just be the attitude makeover that you need to finish more of the tasks or projects that you want to, or need to, complete.

If you do not have a deadline for an important task or project, you need to create one for yourself.

Having just one deadline, however, is often not enough, especially for longer, more complicated projects. You might need multiple deadlines.

Deadlines are somewhat like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, that classic fairy tale. Not too far away, not too near, it needs to be just right!

Once you break that larger project down into more manageable tasks, now give each of those tasks a deadline, within the overall deadline for the entire project.

Whether your boss or coworkers applaud you, clap for yourself.

If you have not done it before, or if you are not currently doing it, keeping a time log can help you see where your time is going.

What is hidden time? It’s time that you previously wasted because you were less cognizant of the passage of time or,

You need to have short- and long-term goals so that you can make the judgment call about what you should be finishing now, next week, next month, or in five years.

What does prioritizing mean? It means that whatever you are doing is the best use of your time right now.

Not all unfinished projects or concerns are equal in importance.

the to-do list is a useful tool to finishing everything you start.

Research has discovered that taking notes by hand has a better outcome than notetaking on a computer or an electronic device.

There is something about writing things down that makes it real and strengthens your commitment to accomplishing something.

say “no” but say it in a way the communicates you are not rejecting the person or their request, but that you are simply committed to finishing something else at this time.

If you have a tendency to say “yes” when you really wanted to say “no” you may have a deep-seated childhood need to please.

Besides an inability to say “no,” those who have too many unfinished projects or activities often are trying to do everything themselves.

delegating is a real time saver, allowing you to free up valuable time and resources to finish that priority project that you never seem to get around to.

Delegate what you dislike doing or that someone else could do as well, or perhaps even better, then you.

If possible, ask the potential person you will be delegating to complete a sample task that is like what he/she will be doing on a regular basis.

Have a specific date for following up as well as completing the assignment. The more specific you are, the better.

Be careful that you are not making more work for yourself by delegating.

Remind yourself that you can finish. After all, you have done it many times before.