How does it fell to start something? Exciting right? You feel proud too. I mean, look at you and all you have achieved.
To another question, how does it feel to not finish what you started? All the excitement and energy you had when you first started begins to drain when you start picturing that your journey is about to stop half way.
The desire to be productive, pushes us to start something, in addition to starting something, real productivity involves the completion of a started project. Everything we do in life has multiple stages to get to completion and in a good number of situations, value won't actually be created not until you get to and finish the last stage. Let's take an example,
- Farmers won't be able to sell their farm produce until it is harvested,
- Automakers won't be able to sell a bunch of cars that have made it to about ninety percent (90%) of the way through the assembly line.
- A lot of employers would not pay you for going to school unless you've actually finished your projects, serve your country (NYSC, in Nigeria's case) and got your certificate.
Every of the above mentioned points require that you start, but if your case is work in progress, the best and valuable thing you can decide to do for yourself is just to pick something, start and finish it. Finishing is a stage, and at that stage you start benefiting from the value which you have created. Over time, I have come to notice that a lot of successful persons are not really the ones who have the smartest brain or have the best ideas; rather they are always the ones who are often the ones who does the best job of bringing an about and idea and success completing it.
A good idea fully executed is better than a great idea that never gets completed.
This ultimately means that you need to finish everything you start? Well not necessarily, but if you do not think that something is or would be worth finishing, just get honest with yourself and end the the project. Do not leave hundreds of partly finished efforts just laying around, and then physically or mentally just acting like you are proposed to come and pick them up. If there is any reason why you should drop nobody, you'd have to do so strategically and intentional. If you have already deposited quite a significant effort into a project, you might just still benefit from it at the finishing point, it even if you decide wouldn’t start it again due to on changed circumstances. Let's say you are in your last few months before graduating from college and realize that you don not want a career in what you are majoring in, you probably should go ahead and graduate. Even if you would choose quite a different path if you were starting college again, there is significant value in having the degree, even if you don’t intend to actually work in that field. The cost of finishing is very much less than the value you will forgo if you decide to just stop.
The moment you plan your efforts with a direct focus on finishing, it turns out to influences the way you manage your work. Focusing on finishing will help you in looking out for ways to derive value along the way to their final goal. Let's look at a community college degree as a step toward a four-year degree locks in some value from your education in two years that you can leverage for your four-year degree. A good number of master’s degree would aid in a preparing options where you could just earn a certificate after 3 or 4 classes which will add up to and count towards your degree. A lot of persons, especially those writing a book will at most time sake use of its chapters (as many as possible) as blog posts so they could derive value out of what they are writing immediately, and could also leverage it toward the major goal which they are working on.
So which projects do you have that are currently in progress? it's about that time; you find something and finish it?