10 Keys to Finishing

I was asked to restructure my last post on Finishing Stuff as a numbered list:

1. Commit to daily behavior. It goes without saying that if you want to finish a project, you should commit to finishing it, and you should make this commitment as early as possible. But it’s easy to promise yourself you’re going to achieve a certain outcome and then find, weeks or months later, that the promise was unrealistic: “Oh well.” Instead of an empty commitment, what you want to make is an actionable commitment. Make a promise about how you’ll behave throughout the project. Promise yourself that you’re going to do something – a little something – towards finishing the project every day: not busywork, but work that specifically moves you closer to the end. For every moment you spend envisioning a brilliant outcome, also spend a moment picturing the daily choices that will help you get there. Imagine yourself struggling with a task that’s boring and tedious, but imagine that you’re feeling good about this task because you know it’ll move the project forward. Think of finishing as a mantra, not as a goal that you set once and forget.

2. Remove conditions. Strip away any exceptions that might be attached to finishing. Don’t say “I’ll finish if…” but rather “I’ll finish by any means.” Ask yourself if you’re willing to prize completion more than you prize quality. This can be difficult because often it’s the dream of a high quality result that motivates you to undertake a project in the first place. You figure that if the outcome is going to be mediocre you might as well not produce it at all. Realize that this thinking is a trap: it sets you up to never finish. Try to flip the relationship in your mind: it’s not the achievement of a particular standard that should allow you to finish; rather, it’s your commitment to finishing that will propel you to achieve your standards.

3. Accept responsibility for obstacle handling. Consider it your job as a creator or a doer to get past the obstacles of the mind that stand in your way: your own doubts, anxieties, and self-criticisms. Just as you might step around a boulder in your path, remember that you can step around your doubts, then look back at them from a distance: you don’t have to tackle each one head-on. As for whether you should succumb to any particularly convincing doubt: maybe someone else would do that, but you can call yourself a creator because you’re willing to prioritize creation over fear and indecision. Discovering ways to stay motivated – to tap into available sources of optimism – is part of the duty you accept. The people who focus on worrying about stuff instead of making stuff are the ones who aren’t making stuff, but you’re different.

4. Take a positive bias. Spend more time thinking of what you can do with what you have rather than what you can’t do because of what you don’t have. If you’re not well prepared for the project and the conditions aren’t ideal, then this point is especially important: accept it as your mission to find the hidden potential in your current self, in your existing tools, in your present circumstances. If your shovel’s broken, of course, you’ll need to fix it, or get a new one, but what if you’ve got an ugly shovel that works fine? Use it with pride. You’ve heard of a fancier one that could make you 20% more efficient – should you upgrade? There are no rules, but try to decide as quickly as you can and move on, rather than making a new project of weighing the pros and cons.

5. Know who you’re working for. Identify a consumer or beneficiary of your efforts – whether it’s a large audience, or a single person, or you yourself in the future – and place their interests above your current comfort. Say “It’s more important that they receive the product I’m making than it is for me to feel comfortable right now as I’m making it.” Focus on what you want to do for them and how you want them to feel, rather than on the discomforts you’re experiencing as you work. Think of what they’ll gain if you finish, and what they’ll miss out on if you don’t. Imagine that they crave the thing you’re laboring to offer.

6. Make things easy. Always try to make things easier for yourself. Ask “How can I set myself up for success?” rather than “How can I find obstacles that will provide a good justification for why I didn’t succeed?” When you hit a roadblock, don’t slow down; either keep trying to overcome the roadblock or shift to working on some other part of the project that’s not blocked. Try to get simple things out of the way as early as possible, inching closer to the finish line in any way you can. For example, if you need a title and you can choose it now, choose it now.

7. Reduce scope. Try to make the project itself simpler, cutting things out, reducing scope where possible. If it’ll budge, bring the finish line closer to you. For example, if you don’t need a title, don’t worry about choosing one. If you don’t need to write an extra paragraph, don’t worry about what it was going to say. Stay open to the possibility that you’ve already finished. Make a habit of asking whether you can release your work right now, just as it is. If you can’t release it right now, then what can you do right now so that if you had to release it tomorrow, it would be releasable?

8. Embrace hacks. Be open to executing inelegant hacks that get you to the next step. Take pride in these hacks; don’t feel embarrassed about them. Know that every project requires duct tape somewhere. Your methods of work might be very important to you and to your creation, but don’t let an attachment to any particular method of work stop you from finishing the work.

9. Laugh. OK, you’re serious about finishing, but see if you can keep a sense of humor and lightheartedness at the same time. Is there anything about your situation that’s a little funny? Is there anything that’s a little fortunate? If you’ve made mistakes earlier in the project, and you’re inclined to lament those mistakes, do the opposite. If you failed at something it means you must have taken a risk, which means you must have had some courage, which you should feel proud about; obviously you survived, so now you have the chance to learn and move on – great!

10. See the big picture. Think of the current project not as your final statement but as part of a sequence of projects that you’ll work on as you manifest your creative vision. If this project isn’t shaping up as wonderfully as you hoped, think of finishing it as a down-payment towards achieving something more wonderful the next time around. Also remember that you won’t actually know how good it is until you finish it and step away from it for a while.