
I need to find out how to finish anything I start. Help me. Please. - kksm19820117
I am a horrible finisher.
I would consider myself reasonably smart (my IQ scores have generally kept between 125 to 148), I am considered a creative asset at the workplace, but the one thing holding me back is my ability to finish a project.
And this is true of almost everything I undertake; I have a track record of unfinished projects that shame me into seeking help. My projects folder is full of projects I started but left incomplete and unfinished; at work I have not yet finished this project that should have been completed by now.
This character flaw is undermining all my strengths and I have to combat it at any cost. Any advice would be appreciated.
======
jhancock
IMO, there is only one solution: Pick one "small" project and will yourself to
take it to "completion". Define completion as something you know you can
attain. In this context, complete can't be "I flip the project for $3mm" as
this is outside your control. You must set yourself up for success. Do one
project this way and then repeat.

EDIT: Your IQ is not relevant to your ability to complete projects. It is
possible your feelings about your high intelligence is a problem in that it
keeps you from being willing to experience failure. These fears should
dissipate as you incrementally do complete projects.

~~~
PostOnce
Diligence > Intelligence.

A lot of people are going to have trouble admitting this, but a diligent
person of average intellect is about a hundred times more likely to become
successful than a lazy person with a titanic intellect.

I can provide examples if necessary.

~~~
hendler
Thomas Edison: 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Edison also had teams of people working for him, to do the laborious tasks, a
strategy the OP might want to... employ ;)

~~~
mixmax
At the height of his career he did yes, but he started out like everyone else
doing the laborious tasks himself.

------
rabidgnat
I had a similar problem in the past. I did some soul-searching, and realized
that the projects that I undertook were huge, and would take at least a month
of work in order to "finish." During this time, it was completely unusable up
until the very end. Not having anything to show for hard work was
demotivational.

The solution for me was to partition my work into hilariously small pieces.
When I start a project from scratch, my first few tasks are "create the
directory hierarchy," "create a repository," "Hello World," and "create
exception-throwing stubs for the basic functionality." The idea is to finish
early and finish often. If you can't commit a working version every day or
two, you may be working on chunks that are too large.

It'll even sound better to your boss! Instead of saying, "no, I am not done,"
you can say, "I finished X,Y,Z, and W, and I am having trouble with S and R."

~~~
nostrademons
We have daily stand-up meetings at work for this purpose. Oftentimes my only
report is "I moved chunk of code from X to Y", which of course required
touching 20 files (ah, legacy codebases). That's fine - the point is that you
make _some_ progress, not that you make _huge amounts_ of progress.

Also, stand-ups are for your (the worker's) benefit, not your boss's. It's
perfectly fine to say "I did nothing this past day" - your boss doesn't care
(well, mine doesn't). But if you say "I did nothing this past day" for a week,
_you'll_ begin to feel like you're missing out on something, which is an
incentive to look at what you're doing and bite off a smaller chunk of it.

~~~
Andys
This is a good attitude, and sounds like you work at a place with a good
culture.

The emphasis is on sustainability - if you can make some small forward
progress every day over a long period, the project is more likely to succeed
and every one wins.

------
jdietrich
From "The Cult of Done Manifesto":

1\. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

2\. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

3\. There is no editing stage.

4\. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what
you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you
don't and do it.

5\. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done,
abandon it.

6\. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

7\. Once you're done you can throw it away.

8\. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.

9\. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

10\. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11\. Destruction is a variant of done.

12\. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a
ghost of done.

13\. Done is the engine of more.

[http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-
mani...](http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-
manifesto.html)

~~~
ilovecomputers
I remember Joe Peacock of Mentally Incontinent fame lambasting this manifesto:
[http://blog.joethepeacock.com/2009/03/cult-of-done-can-
kiss-...](http://blog.joethepeacock.com/2009/03/cult-of-done-can-kiss-my-ass-
and-mark.php)

------
jasonlbaptiste
a) find something very very SMALL to start with. remember: facebook had one
photo, one school, and no groups on feb 4, 2004. zuck built that shit in 2
weeks. could you imagine if he tried to build what fb is now (feature wise)?
Zuck actually was a lot like this from what I can gather - making lots of
small random things, not always finishing them, and seeing them stick. He got
through fb fairly quickly and it stuck.

b) find something that people can pay you for ie- your first dollar. Without
making money, youre running a nonprofit, not a company. even if it's just ad
space, put the ads up from the beginning. Money is a hell of a motivator.

c) have a targeted customer/user. you can get feedback from them and it will
keep you going. seeing someone enjoy your work is a big motivator. you will
feel you cant let them down.

d) try to have it be something that you yourself would use. it will force you
to finish the project.

You can do this. I've been in similar spots. Forget potential failure or
potential success. Just focus on finishing. Hope this helps and good luck!

~~~
daleharvey
Agreed, I would also add to put it live the second you have "anything",
nothing forces you to fix things more than being embarrassed about its current
state

~~~
ghosttrails
worked for cuil

------
DeusExMachina
Have you ever thought to undertake a psychotherapy?

Don't get me wrong, a lot of people consider this to be something only for
"mad" people, but this is not true. When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor.
Why not ask to a doctor when something in your head hurts?

Good psychotherapists can work miracles. I have some good friends that got
some great benefits from this. They are very smart and absolutely cannot be
classified as mad or even disturbed. Just normal people with some personal
problems that a good "doctor of the mind" helped untangle and solve.

~~~
Eliezer
> When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor. Why not ask to a doctor when
> something in your head hurts?

Because when your belly hurts, science understands what the possible causes
are. Your real medical doctor may be able to diagnose one of those causes and
treat it.

When your mind hurts, the existing base of installed psychotherapists belong
to a wide variety of non-evidence-based "schools" where "non-evidence-based"
means "some guy made up some convincing crap and some other people believed
him".

~~~
j_baker
That's simply not true. Psychology is based on evidence. The problem is that
the human mind is a lot more difficult to understand than the stomach. As
such, a good psychologist is a man with one eye in the land of the blind so to
speak.

~~~
DeusExMachina
Psychotherapy is even based on more evidence, since a psychotherapist _is_ a
doctor and not only a psychologist, and understands the psychological part as
well as the physiological one.

~~~
akgerber
You're probably thinking of a psychiatrist. My dad is a psychotherapist and
has an MCSW.

~~~
DeusExMachina
Uh, sorry, I'm thinking in terms of italian definitions. Probably in other
countries these are a little different.

------
mrj
As somebody who works on months-long and frequently years-long projects, I
have some advice.

Firstly, I prefer not to solve /all/ of the hard problems at the start. I try
to somewhat polish and test each feature before moving to the next. Otherwise
the tail end of your project will become a long slog while you have to force
yourself to address all the little things you've put off. It's a massive
demotivator.

Also, you really need to break large projects down into smaller pieces. The
large project quickly becomes overwhelming and despair can set in. Instead,
set out to accomplish a small piece every day. The important thing is to feel
like you've done something worthwhile every day, and to have something new to
look forward to tomorrow. You'll get used to feeling good about yourself at
the end of the day and programming will become addictive.

Usually I think about what I'm going to do that day between hitting snooze or
driving to work. I map out what I want to get done in my head. That'll
motivate me for the day. Of course, the problem with this approach is I tend
to get upset when the day's plan changes. But that's kind of a personal
intensity I have to keep in check sometimes.

Lastly, I find I'm pretty motivated by feedback. I _want_ the users to like
what I've done, so if I'm having motivation problems it can help to get my
programs in front of users. I like to get prototypes in the hands of the right
users, ones who'll understand not to expect everything to be done, as much as
possible. It'll keep me on the right track.

Of course, there's still those days I have to turn off the bookmarks toolbar
and force myself to work on something. Usually that's caused by a roadblock or
a decision I haven't yet figured out. Sometimes I have to put my feet up on
the desk and just noodle for a while.

Anyway, a lot of this will come with more experience. (Just a guess from your
post.) When I started I was overwhelmed with the possibilities and new stuff
to learn that I experimented with a lot of stuff, too. Somewhere I still have
a project folder filled with just "messing around" projects.

It doesn't matter if those are ever finished, it's an important part of
learning. But that was personal stuff... You should finish the work project.
:-)

------
_srobertson
At the risk of being accused of "cheating", I recommend attention medication.
I am very smart, and did exceptionally well in school, but found myself unable
to take even "start small" tasks to completion when not faced with an
absolute, completely immutable deadline (and even then, I still handed in
papers days late). I tried methods found in books, tried adjusting diet and
routine, tried altering workplaces, went as far as trying to do work without
an internet connection (!) -- nothing.

This had nothing to do with motivation. I believed strongly in open source
software, and loved to code small projects, but never finished anything. I
enjoyed writing, and tried no less than 5 times to start a blog. I started
building electronic circuits like headphone amplifiers but abandoned them
halfway through soldering. No matter how much I wanted or tried to get stuff
done, it just wouldn't happen.

A year and a half ago I started taking Vyvanse, which is essentially a slow-
release amphetamine salt compound. Since then, I've completed an excellent and
productive internship at Apple, shipped two major releases of Quod Libet (an
open-source music library application), and am actually making progress on a
sprawling thesis, three things I would never have imagined being able to do
before. I've even seen a difference socially (I can have conversations that
are important to others but meaningless to me without getting bored) and
emotionally (I no longer feel like a failure or a waste of potential).

Other people have posted many great suggestions, and by all means, try them.
But also talk to a qualified psychiatrist that you trust.

~~~
lsc
I agree; ADD meds help /a lot/ - they won't solve all your problems by
themselves, but man, they help a lot.

------
shill
OP, have you taken the myers-brigs test?

I'm guessing that you are an INTP like me. I am battling the same demon. :(

Here is a description of INTP's that I found...

"Many INTPs are a lot like the stereotypical absentminded professor --
dawdling, distracted, and forgetful of mundane chores, late for obligations,
losing homework or library books, and generally disconnected from the business
of life in the external world...A big problem for INTPs is that they are so
quickly bored, and once their attention wanders, they will rarely finish the
many interesting projects they start."

<http://borntoexplore.org/tempquotes.htm>

~~~
kksm19820117
Actually, I am an INTJ.

~~~
munctional
I am, too, and I also suffer from a similar situation. :-)

------
sunir
I don't know enough about the OP to talk directly to your problem, so I can
only share a few interesting frames of mind that I have picked up along the
way that help push me along.

There is a phenomenon from child psychiatry that has shown that parents that
say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine that child's
ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life. These kids
believe they are intrinsically better than their peers, so they don't keep
putting effort into themselves. Eventually they encounter a challenge that
exceeds their initial abilities and they give up since they don't understand
their performance is in their control, not baked into their God-given make-up.

Parents who instead say, "Wow, you put in a lot of effort," teach their
children that the success is based on factors that you can control, like how
much effort you put in and how prepared you are and what you do. These kids do
a lot better in life.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-
secret-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-
raising-smart-kids)

Your problem description (high IQ, creative asset, character flaw) is in the
wrong frame. Since we're talking about action, it's not about who you are, but
what you do.

Anyway, getting things done is surprisingly simple (not easy). You look at the
goal, work backwards thinking of all the things that have to get done to get
to that goal, and then start doing them.

Another key part of being successful is to delay gratification. People who
need constant positive feedback to keep moving forward don't get very far in
real situations since most of life is a slog on the way to a better
destination.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer)

The final thing that helps motivate action is to know where you want your life
to lead. It helps give each smaller project a sense of purpose: does this move
my life forward or not? If it does, it's easy to step through things.

Once you have a vision, it's important to continuously repeat in your head all
the positive aspects of success. A lot of people focus on the failure or ever
the fear of success. As I mentioned above, most real life projects are a grind
on your energy and your emotional state. You have to be your own emotional
support system.

I liked Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford where he acknowledged how
death is a motivator. Life is short. It takes a long time to accomplish
anything (5 years or more). So, you only get so many chances (maybe 10) to do
something meaningful. You have to always ask yourself, "Am I living this day
as if it's my last?"

<http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html>

I will say none of these approaches to life are intrinsic to a person. I
suspect all successful people have to teach themselves these strategies along
the way and they struggle with them the whole way along.

~~~
GHFigs
_...parents that say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine
that child's ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life._

This bears repeating. This kind of thinking (the "self-esteem movement") was
extremely popular in school systems in the late 80s and much of the 90s, when
someone born in 1982[1] would have been in school. This kind of "I'm not
living up to my abilities" panic is common as a result. It conditioned smart
kids into thinking they succeeded because they had a special power, so when
that power fails to deliver the results they desire, many have problems.[2]

I say "they", but I myself spent some of my early 20s thinking I had somehow
damaged my brain at some point, and did a lot of fretting about how I needed
to find out the "trick" to getting back to the level of success I felt a
person of my talents was capable of. And I know I'm not the only one here.

The truth is there is no trick. You just do stuff. You get more of it done if
you actually care[3] and if it's stuff worth doing, but beyond that it's just
tactics and micro-optimizations. You learn what works for you, and more
importantly what doesn't, but it always comes back to actually cranking
whatever widget needs cranking. Only then do you get to exercise your talent
and intelligence.

[1]: I assume the date in "kksm19820117" is a birthdate. [2]: These days they
call that power "Adderall", but that's another story. [3]: We all have
projects that we start because we think we _should_ care, but that don't get
done because we don't _actually_ care. Drop them when you spot them. There's
no shame in that. You'll free up your attention for the stuff you do care
about.

~~~
peregrine
...This kind of "I'm not living up to my abilities" panic is common as a
result...

This is defined as ontological guilt, where you don't live up to your
perceived potential.

------
jey
First ask yourself: why is finishing so important? You only need to "finish"
if there's positive utility from finishing. If you're just working on some
project for fun, and you've already learned a lot from it and have no real
gain from finishing it, why bother? The important thing is to not let yourself
quit when there _is_ more utility in finishing than stopping. That would be a
problem, but don't berate yourself to finish things for the sake of finishing.
Just be constantly self-critical/introspective and aware of the possible
outcomes and their expected utility, and be honest with yourself about your
reasons for "quitting" or "finishing".

~~~
Retric
I up voted you because I think that way, but there is often more utility in
finishing a project than it might look like 90% of the way there. I find
projects that are almost completed tend to get stuck on the same goal. But,
with a "finished" project I can go back and add a new piece without the
overhead of finishing my previous idea. Basically, when the project already
does X you can build Y, but when the project can't do X it's hard to think of
or about Y.

------
mpk
Find a partner to work with.

Another comment mentions finding a partner who can finish your work, but
personally I think that's horrible advice.

The main things are sharing workload and working as peers. Review each others
code, do _some_ pair-programming even if it seems a waste of time to you (or
the other person). Feedback and collaboration create action which moves your
project forward.

Explain to your partner that finishing is not exactly one of your strengths.
They're bound to have weaknesses too, ask them about that and find a way to
help them with theirs. For yours, when you find yourself zoning out, getting
bored, reading HN, etc, get your partner to do some pair-programming (or
testing, documenting, researching, whatever) to get you back on track.

Forget about personality tests, medication and whatnot. Working with a partner
will teach you the behavioral patterns you need and a lot more besides.

~~~
nico
I fully identify with the OP and some others commenting here. I've tried
partnering with someone and it works great, the bad thing is that you end up
always depending on someone else. If you don't have a partner to do something,
then you don't do it... or don't finish it :(

------
qjz
I could have written your post a year ago. I realized I needed to tackle this
issue because it was affecting me both personally and professionally. The
first thing to realize is that not all projects warrant finishing. I think a
project is worth doing if it falls into one or more of these three categories:

1\. It pays the bills.

2\. It's fun.

3\. It's essential to your health and well-being.

You need to make a living and have fun, but even those should not interfere
with your personal welfare. Don't be afraid to let your interests lead you to
a more satisfying career path, even if that means leaving the work behind for
someone else to finish (or not). And no matter what you do, don't neglect your
physical health, because you'll need it to truly enjoy any of your long-term
gains.

Also learn to say "No" to others and yourself. Some people accumulate projects
like three-legged chairs on trash day. Is it really worth the time and effort?
You can't solve everyone's problems and you've discovered that hoarding just
clutters up your life. If you're going to dumpster-dive for projects, stick to
bright shiny things, stuff that tastes good, or anything that brings easy cash
at the pawn shop (metaphorically speaking). Most of the other junk in there is
just that: ideas not worth keeping.

------
kaffeinecoma
I find it helpful to make lists for myself. Checking things off of a list
always feels like progress, which itself is a motivator.

To take a real life example- when I was doing iPhone apps, I noticed that a
common pattern for me was to lose interest/motivation when all of the ugly
details began to emerge from what initially seemed like a simple weekend
project.

My way of dealing with this was to always keep a prioritized list of the
absolute minimum features I needed in order to ship it. It's always easy to
get a little off-track while investigating ideas, so I tried to focus on what
the absolute most important aspects were. You can always work on a 2.0 after
you ship 1.0, so try to focus on the most important aspects without getting
side-tracked by non-essentials.

------
csmeder
This is a coincidence :), today I started thinking about writing a essay on
this subject (I have the same problem). The idea for the solution I am going
to try came directly from Paul Graham's recent interview on Mixergy. In it he
said we look for athletes and not Wimps.

    
    
      PG: ... We say "how do we recognize more people like that?" And, there are 
      start ups that we were fooled by and we think "how do we stop being fooled 
      in the future?", you know? ...
    
      Andrew: Okay, what about the bad ones? What have you noticed that is 
      disastrous? What kind of people?
    
      PG: Wimps.
    
      Andrew: Wimps?
    
      PG: Yea.
    
    

Okay so the problem is I'm a wimp when it comes to finishing stuff, how do I
change this? In another part of the interview PG mentions he looks for
athletes when taking applicants for YC. (I cant find this in the transcript?
but I'm almost positive he said this.)

So my solution is to run/hike
<http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/U/A/bishoppeak.jpg> this hill on a daily
basis, in hopes of making my self not a wimp. I started today and hope to
continue this. My plan is to make it to the top on even days and on odd days
I'll do it half way.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I used to be into cross country running. I only ever managed a half marathon
though, not serious distance. I don't think this will help you personally. But
getting/staying fit is always a good thing.

At the same time I'm not a finisher either - the interest for me is in finding
the solution. The thrill of the chase. Once I've captured my quarry I'm not
bothered with it, I'll chase something else.

Unfortunately this means I have problems starting real world tasks where I've
already solved them mentally. I also have anxiety about starting before I've
completed a mental solution, a sort of perfectionism.

------
joshu
Things that seem to work for me:

A) try to get the projects to be as minimal as possible. perhaps you are
avoiding finishing them because they don't need the finishing work?
relentlessly try to remove as much as possible in order to ship.

B) get things shipped. social feedback and pressure work wonders for
motivation.

C) write things to do with a given project on cards, and put the cards out in
front of you. as you do the thing, you retire the card to the retired pile.
watch it stack up.

D) draw a 2 x 4 grid on a piece of paper and write things that have to be done
in the grid squares. as you finish each one, cross it out and put a new item
underneath it. when the sheet gets too messy, rewrite it.

------
volomike
Just a hunch, but you wouldn't happen to have ADD, would you? You might want
to get that checked.

Also, the Internet kind of amplifies the ADD-like tendencies in us all because
there are just so many opportunities it can provide for us all.

But second to these would be that you might just be wanting to get things a
little too perfect. This is very, very good, but also sometimes you just need
to cut the cord, open up your support channel, mark it as beta in an extended
period, and just work out the bugs as they go. Oh, and unlike Microsoft --
actually _read_ those bug and problem reports and take them seriously.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
We read the bug reports, I promise.

------
keefe
You must be merciless with yourself. Select the most important project, get a
piece of paper and write down everything that needs to be done in bullet
points. Write down the minimum and maximum time you believe each should take.
Figure out the maximum amount of time you can work each day (10 hours is long
term, every day sustainable rate for me, doing more imho leads to diminishing
returns). Do the same time evaluation for every other important project and
then reevaluate which is truly the most critical. Work on that critical
project only until it is done, mercilessly without deviation.

------
CedriK
When starting a project find a GOOD partner. Give yourself milestones to
achieve and share tasks. Use a bottom-up methodology.

No project is actually done. Each milestone must be usable. Keep this in mind.

Don't feel bad if you don't terminate a projet. Failure is ok but don't stop
there, start a new project, again and again... until success!

------
j_baker
I'm proud to say that I've _never_ finished a project. If you're looking for
the point in time when you'll say "there, now that project has everything
finished", it won't come. Instead, I recommend learning to be satisfied with
incompletion, because that's all anything you'll ever do will be.

~~~
cookiecaper
You seem to mean that your projects are never complete because you are always
iterating on them and considering improvements.

I think when OP says incomplete, he means that his projects never acquire
adequate functionality to be useful within the necessary context, which is
kind of the opposite of your problem; you can't stop working on things, and he
can't get himself to work on things long enough.

------
billswift
I have the same problem. The _only_ thing I have found that actually works is
to not let myself start another project until I finish the current one. When I
need a change I can do general maintenance or read in something, but no new
projects. When I can keep to this it works.

------
axod
I've never really 'finished' anything either. I think the main thing is to
make sure you are making progress, moving forward, and improving, rather than
trying to 'finish'.

------
Ixiaus
It's all in the head m8. Volition and longevity are difficult to cultivate, to
create something takes patience, focus, and dedication. Start out by starting
every morning right - I wake up at 6AM (or earlier), immediately take _two_
hot-cold showers, take adrenal supplements (to help with mid-day drowsiness),
eat an apple (every morning) and I _meditate_.

This simple routine, everyday, has proven to boost my energy and willpower
throughout the day and into the near future. It has everything to do with
doing something that _requires_ willpower but isn't related to "projects".
I've noticed ever since the hot-cold showers that my mettle is considerably
more developed.

I highly recommend meditation, that is one of the keys IMHO. It really
sharpens your mind - day dreaming is a form of meditation, you don't have to
behave like a buddhist monk to meditate. I typically just sit in a comfy
chair, close my eyes, and do one of two meditations: either a no-mind
meditation (no thought) or a visualization meditation.

~~~
Psyonic
Why two showers?

~~~
Ixiaus
They aren't two separate showers - I'm in the shower for a period of 20/25
minutes but I turn the water to really hot then really cold _twice_. I
expressed that poorly :)

~~~
Psyonic
Oh I see. Makes sense. I'll have to give that a try

------
dedward
I can relate completely.

After a decade and a bit hammering away at projects, and probably tens of
thousands of great ideas in my head that never happened... I now, regardless
of other work, pick _one_ task for the day that I intend to complete. Usually
work related, sometimes related to an ongoing project at work, sometimes a
personal goal at work, sometimes something completely different - but I set
it, and finish it, at almost all costs.

It doesn't have to be big... but you end the day with a sense of completion
that you set out to do something, and did it... and at the end of the week,
you did 7 things. This becomes natural, and feeds on itself, making you feel
better and better and less stressed out about not completing things. As time
goes on, I notice I am just naturally getting better and better at picking
what those goals are until they become mostly strategic and to my benefit.

------
radu_floricica
Apart from the excellent advice jhancock and others gave (pick something small
and finish it), I wanted to say that reading your post I realized there is
another practical solution to the same problem: in the work I do, finishing
doesn't make sense.

I write custom software for a few clients. They're developed continuously,
without any hint of them ever being done. The catch is that since very very
early they're "working". "Working" is a concept much more useful to me then
"finished". Working means it does useful stuff for the people using it. Will
there be more development? Sure. Does it matter? Nope.

The only such project I can consider finished is one in which the client
company was bought by a bigger company, which came with its own software
solution. All development stopped (eventually), but the software is still up
and running, used occasionally for its database.

------
sebastianavina
hire people... I just had that problem... I couldn't finish any project, but I
knwe how to do everything... I hired people, tell them how to work, micro
manage them... and all I can say is that I'm quite successful...

Stop trying to do all by yourself... you are too valuable to spend time
actually doing things...

------
zupatol
If your strength is to be creative, maybe you are most useful at the beginning
of projects. Maybe you could get someone else to finish them?

I have the opposite character flaw of finishing everything I start. This is
not very good either because sometimes it's better to throw things away. For
example I spent 4 years studying economics although I find the subject rather
boring. Also the personal projects that I've started stop me from starting
other personal projects which also interest me.

My personal project takes so much of my time that I don't work full time as a
programmer. I work about 9 months, then go away 6 months and conme back to
programming. If the project I am working on is not done after 9 months,
another programmer takes over. This is one way in which you could get other
people to finish your projects.

------
jodrellblank
Plenty of people telling you how they approach this, maybe you'll
coincidentally have the same cause and find a workable solution.

I've just started Reading PJ Eby's meta-self-help book Thinking Things Done,
wherein he sets up a way of treating one's mind as a knowable predictable
system and describes a generalised method for troubleshooting and fixing your
own individual causes of problems i.e. what's stopping you from finishing
projects, not what often stops many people.

It reads well so far and it feels like it addresses a lot of issues with ra-ra
just-do-it believe-in-yourself-help-books, and it takes a practical geeky
programmer's view on things too so I'm already very interested; but, er, only
four preview chapters are out so far. Sign up to his mailing list to get them
weekly as they come out.

------
lsc
I have the same problem, and as I recently finished a goddamn book (do you
know how much work that was? I didn't. Three years. I can't believe I finished
it.) I think I can speak to this.

1\. add meds help a /lot/ as does the use of caffeine to get me through boring
parts. (Caffeine, especially is best used occasionally, I've found; if I use
it every day, I begin to require it for 'baseline' performance) Usually for me
it has been caffeine /or/ add meds. Both together can be bad.

2\. work with other people

Other people can keep you on track, and support the project when you are
sagging. also, for me the social pressure to not be a drag on the team helps
me push towards completion.

3\. start a lot of projects.

yeah, the last sounds counterintuitive; but I find that I finish about 40% of
what I start; and this correlates almost not at all with my total workload.

4\. hang in there and keep trying. it gets easier to finish as you get older.
when I was young, I finished maybe 5-10% of what I started.

5\. setup your life so that your successes pay for your failures. For me,
being a SysAdmin worked very well, as as long as shit runs, nobody is too mad
at you for not finishing the awesome management system you had planned, and
when shit is broken, it's an emergency, and I don't know about you, but I seem
to do pretty well at dealing with emergencies (Obviously, much like caffeine,
it can't be an emergency every day.)

Accept now that nobody else is going to be very understanding about this.
working for other people will always be a rollercoaster of being hot shit when
you finish your projects, and dogshit when you don't.

For this reason, I suggest working for yourself. If you can set yourself up as
a product business rather than one that sells your hours, you will be more
successful and feel better about yourself. I've managed to do that myself with
prgmr.com; As long as I get it right often enough, and my failures are
unfinished projects rather than production fuckups, everyone is pretty happy
with me, because the unfinished projects were, well, mine. nobody was paying
me for that.

------
kostko
Maybe you're just struggling with perfectionism or with fear of failure. I
often find myself doing this when making music. I always try to make
everything just like I see/hear it in my head, and if it comes short, I
usually just scrap it or leave it. The good recipe for this would be, good is
perfect enough. And you need to know when to admit to yourself that this is as
best as you can do and move on. Same thing with programming. I ofter start
thinking how would I go about solving a problem elegantly. If this takes too
much time, I just go with a 'ugly' solution. I have to, or I wouldn't get much
done.

------
unperson
Personally, when I am working on a project, I find it is easy to lose my way
when I reach the point of knowing I am capable of finishing it -- even if
still in planning. It interests me more to know that I could do it than
actually proving it to others by completing the project.

I find it useful to examine what is left of the project and, GTD style, break
it down into next action steps. With the remaining tasks broken down as small
as possible, I find it easier to stay focused and knock things out. As others
have mentioned, the motivation at this point is often social; I don't want to
seem uncapable to others.

~~~
flipper
I experience the same symptoms. When I get over a difficult hurdle, and
realize that successful completion is a 'formality' a wave of pleasure
envelops my brain and I stop working.

------
cwilson
I'd also like to point out that this thread has 90+ comments now and all you
had to do was ask. The same concept can be applied to pretty much anything, HN
is not the only generous group out there.

------
mattm
Hey there, I don't know you so take my advice if it suits you.

I generally pick up new things very quickly which is exciting at the
beginning, but then it gets to be boring after a while. Five years after
graduating university, the longest job I've held has been 9 months - which I
don't consider a bad thing as it's not difficult for a programmer to find
work.

I imagine you're like me - you learn very fast and enjoy challenges. When
something becomes less challenges and more monotonous, that is when you want
to pack it up.

One thing I do for things that are important is commit to working on it for
just 15 minutes a day. You would be surprised at how much just 15 minutes a
day can add up to after a few weeks. This is similar to Jerry Seinfeld's
"Don't break the chain" (You can google it). Every day just do a little bit
more. Since you limit the time you spend, you will probably find yourself not
wanting to stop after 15 minutes if it is enjoyable. But make sure to stop
anyways. Waiting until the next day will allow you to retain the excitement of
the project and you will be looking forward to working on it tomorrow.

I would also highly recommend picking up the book "Mastery" by George Leonard.
I have never heard anyone describe the learning process as well as him. His
word for people like you is a hacker (this book was written well before hacker
became mainstream). Hackers pick up things quickly but then quit when they
reach a plateau. However, plateaus are normal parts of the learning process.
Mr. Leonard says that many people quit when they get to that first big plateau
because they feel they are no longer making (rapid) progress. However, he says
that you should enjoy the plateau. The plateau is a way of your body saying
"Ok, I've learned enough for now. I need to take it all in first before I can
move on to the next stage." In fact, a plateau is a way of knowing that big
gains will be found just around the corner if you can persist. If you're
spiritual, you might think of plateaus as a test to see how much you really
want to attain your goal.

Definitely, check that book out. It's very concise and you can read it in a
couple hours.

And don't be so hard on yourself. Most people are exactly like you - it's easy
to start things, much harder to follow through. Why do you think New Year's
Resolutions are mostly a joke?

------
daveungerer
_As the man walked along the path, thinking about his life, a feeling of
confusion came over him. A feeling that he knew all too well. And every time
this feeling came upon him, he knew that it was a signal that his life was not
in order, not running smoothly. He had experienced this many times before. Too
many times. And he was tired of it. But, left to his own means, he had yet to
figure out a way to break out of this pattern. He was stuck in neutral, unable
to break free. Not knowing what to do._

That's the beginning of the "Hypno-Peripheral Processing" audio course
"Procrastination, A Rhythmic Approach, by Dr. Lloyd Glauberman". If you
identify with those statements, I would definitely recommend you give it a
try. I think it takes more than a few words of good advice to change something
that's so deeply ingrained. When I tried it a few years ago, the effect was
immediate, and while I wouldn't ascribe it only to that, I'm definitely much
less of a procrastinator today.

You may have some reservations about hypnotizing yourself, but it's really not
the kind you see on TV. You're actually aware of what's happening, kind of
like being semi-hypnotized I guess.

Ironically enough, I never finished the whole course. I was too busy doing all
the other things I'd been procrastinating on.

------
llimllib
1) Have a blog

2) write something (do not finish!)

3) release it (minimally, stick it on github or something similar)

4) blog about it (and post the blog entry somewhere where people will see it,
aka here)

5) guilt will drive you to make it better

6) work on the project and blog more about it

7) Either people will get interested, you'll start getting links or it won't
go anywhere

8) decide whether to continue it or start the cycle over again at step one
with a new project

If you do this a few times, I guarantee that you'll have a blog with
readership and a better idea of what people want/wnat to work on.

~~~
xtho
Oh come on. A blog is a highway to eternal procrastination.

~~~
llimllib
I think you underestimate the differences between people; that has definitely
not been the case for me.

~~~
nico
You are also underestimating the differences between people, because if it's
worked for you, it doesn't mean it will work for the OP. I did what you
suggest, wrote some code, started a blog where I wrote 2 tutorials and now, in
spite of getting comments of people saying the want the 3rd tutorial, I can't
get myself to do it, don't ask me why, I just can't, I'm a professional
procrastinator!

~~~
llimllib
I'm just presenting a method that's worked for me, not saying it'll work for
him.

(I know that feeling of being an impressive procrastinator though. I think I
fuel on guilt due to my catholic upbringing, that's why it works for me :)

------
spektom
When the project reaches the phase when everything is obvious, no challenges
are left, but just a lot of routine work - it becomes non-interesting. I think
this is normal.

------
maxklein
I got only one thing to say, but it's the simplest and most powerful concept I
have ever learnt: If you have 4 things to do, and you do them one after the
other, you will be fastest than if you do them all at the same time.

If each task takes 1 day to do, and you do all at once, you will deliver all
in 4 days. If you do them one after the other, task 1 is done on day 1, task 2
on day 2, task 3 on day 3 and last task on day 4. So 3 of 4 tasks are
delivered ahead of schedule.

------
peregrine
I have the same problem and its tough but this is not a new issue and some
books/videos exist to help.

'Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain' <http://vimeo.com/5895898>

"The Now Habit" [http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-
Procrastination-G...](http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-
Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/0874775043)

"The War of Art" [http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/04...](http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/0446691437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266767432&sr=1-1)

"Linchpin" [http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-
Godin/...](http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-
Godin/dp/1591843162/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266767461&sr=1-1)

All of these books have one thing in common and that is getting used to
shipping things. I noticed lately that while I was horrible at shipping my
little pet projects I could cook and prepare meals for me and my girlfriend
without worry that it tasted bad. I just cook it and good or bad we eat it.
I've gotten over the fear of failure here.

Now I just need to get over the fear of failure for my projects.

------
ecommando
Partner with a finisher. Focus on your skills, collude at the start on the
features, and let them take over and close the project up while you start up
the next.

~~~
nostrademons
That can be hard on the finisher, and you might have trouble finding one
willing to take on that role. It's always more fun to dream up new features
than it is to finish existing ones. Why should they do all the grunt work
while you have all the fun?

Finishing isn't really an intrinsic trait. It's a skill that most of us learn,
often quite painfully. Why should those of us who've bothered to learn it have
to compensate for the people who haven't?

~~~
j_baker
There's more to starting a project than dreaming up new features. Yes,
starting a project actually takes _work_.

You're right, everyone loves dreaming up new ideas. However, people who can
put those dreams into motion are rare. I'd honestly hire a person who can
start a project before putting it off onto some poor slob before I hire the
poor slob. Why? Because poor slobs are incredibly easy to find. Starters
aren't.

~~~
nostrademons
Maybe this is a function of who I hang out with, but I haven't found poor
slobs to be incredibly easy to find since I left the public school system. And
would you really want to hire the poor slob at all?

Ideally, your organization would consist only of people who can _both_ start
and finish projects. Something seems to get lost in translation when you have
one group of people responsible for starting projects and another responsible
for finishing them.

(Disclaimer: this may not apply to big companies. I can think of a few people
within Google that I definitely would put into the "starter" category, and a
few more that I would definitely put into the "finisher" category. Google is
big enough to support that division of labor. Your startup is probably not.)

------
Arun2009
Some tricks that I've used:

\- Don't look at the eventual goal - it's discouraging to see the long road
you have to travel to get there. Instead, focus on the little things you can
do now, and make doing those things your intermediate goals.

\- Work in short (30 - 45 minutes) bursts. Planning long marathons only makes
starting work that much more difficult.

\- I keep a small TTD text file ala GTD style to get things off my mind. I
usually finish most of the things I put in there. The file contains micro-
items that need to be done.

\- Focus on getting to the "starting ritual". If I have to work on a website,
for example, I just focus on starting the IDE first.

\- Start delivering whatever portions of the project you have completed thus
far. Don't worry too much about the quality of your work. Instead, simply
claim that the work's in its draft or beta stage.

\- Have a personal blog, and log every day the work you have put in towards
your goals. If you didn't do anything on a day, log that. This is also a great
place for you to play your own coach.

\- Don't torment yourself over past lapses. Just resolve to start from this
moment on.

\- Look at your past accomplishments, and affirm yourself of your ability to
deliver.

All that being said, the fundamental problem here is putting up with an
immediate unpleasantness in return for a _potential_ future reward. If you
cannot see a reward clearly, then obviously there's not much point fretting
over procrastinating. Just enjoy your present moment!

I also think it might be useful to have an overarching sense of mission - some
grand theme - to add an element of urgency that'll keep you going.

------
prgmatic
I think the sheer number of helpful responses this post has received indicate
the absolute value in the Hacker News community. If you are reading this or
have commented here, I respect you -- me and you are a part of a great
community.

In regards to this post, I can connect with you, kksm. You are certainly not
alone, it's common to find yourself overwhelmed, especially if you, like
myself, are ambitious and love to take advantage of opportunities.

Unfortunately, the downside to this type of ambition is that along with a few
great things you make take up, you often take up many "bad" things. By "bad"
"things" I mean tasks or projects that you are not motivated to do, or as
others here have described, "do not align with your life goals and motives."

I want to repeat JustOnce's suggestion, diligence is critical. Diligence is
the mother of success. Look at all of the responses on here--it is evidence
that what you are trying to resolve is an issue many people deal with.

Good luck, and don't ever give up. Divide and conquer. Fight for what you
love, it is my guess that you are not stupid or lacking any passion in what
you do. You may simply be taking on more than you can chew.

------
tsally
I had a similar problem. Here's what I've figured out myself over the last two
years. I unconsciously sabotaged myself because I believed I was smart and
didn't want to be proven wrong. I exhibited the following behaviors:

* Obsessed over details because I wanted every project to reflect my brilliance. When projects turned out to be decent (but not earth shattering), I would just abandon it rather than finishing it. I didn't want to dilute my image of myself.

* Pulled all nighters before deadlines without doing work. The I would attribute the fact that I did poorly to lack of sleep.

* Didn't ask for help on projects when I actually needed it because I wanted to be considered smart. Didn't ask questions when I didn't understand something for the same reason.

The solution for me was to bombard myself with proof that intelligence doesn't
matter. Hard work is the only thing that matters. Intelligence doesn't mean
_anything_ if you don't invest the time. How are you supposed to compete with
someone working 100 hour weeks when you work 10? You would have to be an
_order of magnitude_ smarter than them, and that's just not possible.

So if you're anything like me, you might be trying to cultivate the perception
of intelligence rather than proving your intelligence through action. Real
artists ship, and real geniuses finish their projects. Don't let the fear of
failure or mediocrity stop you from finishing your projects.

(As for the original cause of this behavior, it most certainly was what other
people are pointing out. From a young age I had the idea that I was smart
cultivated by my parents and my teachers. This community is full of people who
received similar treatment. Having such attentive teachers was a huge benefit,
but this is one negative side effect.)

------
mtodd
I've found that I'm much more likely to complete and succeed at a given task
by creating very specific goals for myself, and breaking down my goals into
specific tasks. It's the same concept that I do in building software writing
out stories for each feature, etc, but applied to myself.

For example, I have a specific goal to read 3 chapters in Godel, Escher, Bach
every month until I finish the book. I'm also challenging myself in other
areas of my life, like eating, running and biking, etc.

Most importantly, though, is that my goals are all very short-term: most of my
goals are in 1 month chunks, but some are in 1 week chunks. Only very few are
more, and they usually are broken up into sub-goals with 1 month chunks or
less.

At my work, we like to create goals and tasks that are SMART: Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.

There's no way you'll finish something if you don't know how to get to the
end, how long it will take you, how much effort it will require, and how it
will look when you get there.

------
gcheong
Consider some of the projects you did finish, what about those is different
from the ones you don't? Realize that you have the ability to separate your
thoughts and feelings about a project from your actions on a project and work
on acting in a valued manner (assuming here that finishing the project is of
value to you).

------
akamaka
There's a lot of good advice here, but I'd like to offer another perspective:
since you consider this a personality flaw, perhaps you should consider if the
projects you choose are well suited to you.

As an example, would you make a better farmer or a better chef?

A farmer deals with many short and long term projects: choosing and planting
crops that will take the entire summer to grow; looking after the soil over
the course of many years by rotating his crops; planning and executing a large
scale harvest in the short few weeks that the produce is ripe.

On the other hand, a chef thinks day to day and minute to minute. Planning a
menu for next week's meal; finding the ingredients; taking orders from
customers as they come in over the course of an evening.

Both these occupations are valuable, but require vastly different skills and
mindsets. Maybe you're trying to be a farmer when you'd actually make a
fantastic chef!

------
vashthestampede
I think that all this advice is good. I would add to any list to find out what
you want your end goal to be. When you decide what that is, make a list of
smaller tasks that will accomplish your goal; like a do to list of sorts.

Then, complete each smaller part or your list. I tend to do the harder
projects first, makng my work easier as I progress. If you are having an off
day where you know you won't complete something, break it up into smaller
tasks that you can complete.

Make sure you have enough time to complete one thing on your list so that it
doesn't drag into the next day or whatever time fram you are looking at.
Obviously, bigger projects may take longer than 1 day for whatever you are
planning you goal to be. This way you still get a feeling of accomplishment,
and you work towards something that needs to be done, even if it seems
daunting at first.

------
ramit
Before we dig in with tons of suggestions, can you tell us what you've done to
try to overcome this problem?

That would help a lot.

------
nonrecursive
Awhile back I wrote an article on how to troubleshoot a lack of motivation:
[http://www.learngrowdo.com/2009/12/how-to-get-and-stay-
motiv...](http://www.learngrowdo.com/2009/12/how-to-get-and-stay-motivated/)

The main takeaway is that motivation has two components, Incentives and
Confidence. I could offer you a million dollars to paint a realistic portrait
of me, but if you haven't touched paint since kindergarten, you're not going
to finish that portrait.

Similarly, you might have the skill to code my next iphone app for me, but
you're not going to unless I offer you some kind of payment. (Please feel free
to correct me on this one.)

Understanding what incentivizes you and where you're lacking confidence
(knowledge, feedback, self-confidence) will help you understand why you're not
motivated to complete your projects.

------
BrianAnderson
One recommendation I would make is to shift your focus from how you can
accomplish the project to how best to deliver the project regardless of the
person. I used to have a similar problem (and still do at times) and the
reason I could always start but never finish is that I sequenced all the tasks
I liked to do early in the project so at the end of the project all I had were
things I didn't enjoy.

Now I do two things. First I look how to outsource what I can to other people
- for example my sister is very detailed oriented so I pay her to do things
that would bore me, like writing instructional copy, disclaimers, terms of
service, etc

With those activities I can't get off my plate, I sequence them so I am doing
fun and boring activities equally. That way I am not over-burdened with
boring, tedious, or difficult tasks.

Make sense?

------
oomkiller
There are two ways to look at your situation. You might actually have a real
flaw that is causing you to get discouraged and fail to complete things. This
can be caused by a lot of things like depression, stress etc. The alternative
is that not completing things is just your personality, because you are easily
distracted by new ideas, so you never follow through. This is my personal
problem, and I have found it quite difficult to overcome. My solution is to
find someone who will work with me to keep me thinking about the project at
hand, or finding a position where this type of instability is valued.
According to the MBTI test, I am type ENTP, which seems to describe my
behavior. I suspect you may be similar.

------
nfnaaron
Coincidentally, the post and article in this current post may give you some
insight:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139146>

Summary: will power is a limited resource, like muscle power, than can be both
exhausted and developed.

------
crocowhile
If I were to finish everything I start I'd know 1/100th of what I do. Most of
the times I stop just when I realize that I have enought knowledge to be able
to do it "if I just want to". And I move on. Once in a while a finish stuff
just because I kind of fall in love with it or just because it's the right
thing at the right time.

Different topic is projects I do for work, or for career. In that case, you
must be finishing and in my experience nothing works better than a family to
go back to in the evening. I used to procrastinate during the day and I'd have
to stay at work till late to finish stuff. I don't do that anymore because I
realized my wife deserved much better than that. It helped me a lot finding
concentration.

------
bquinn
For some reason I thought of this post when I read this story, so I came back
to post the link: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-
wr...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-
fiction-part-one)

It's about writing fiction, but I think we can learn a lot from people who
spend years holed up in a loft with a laptop typing out tens of thousands of
words that may or may not ever be seen by anyone.

One theme that resonated with me is that you should try to get to something
you can vaguely call "finished" as soon as you can: have something on the page
that you can then come back and edit, refactor, tinker with. Might help. Good
luck.

------
seven
You need to define what 'done' means.

I try to create some sort of nice image in my head about how it would be if my
project is ready. Then I try to recall this image if I see myself tripping off
the path. Just to remember myself why I am doing something helps me a lot.

I usually write down the core features. I only allow myself to code something
that is not on the list if I earned it by working on something on that list
the same day.

Perhaps you should take a look into some parts of the XP (extreme programming)
philosophy. One idea is that you work in iterations and that every iteration
should produce something usable. In theory you could stop at any point and
should have something 'finished'. In theory...

------
yannis
I don't know what the reddit crowd will tell you

[http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/b4faj/i_need_to_find_o...](http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/b4faj/i_need_to_find_out_how_to_finish_anything_i_start/)

but with your CV
[http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHgzAaQYmIOZGdqanFjMjlfMm...](http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHgzAaQYmIOZGdqanFjMjlfMmN3M25tY2Y4&hl=en&pli=1)
, you shouldn't have a problem. Maybe your work does not motivate you or you
too much of a perfectionist.

Are you a vegetarian? Maybe you don't have enough energy? My suggestion grub a
jug of coffee, order a pizza and post the Project here on Monday.

------
GBKS
A thing that has helped me is, instead of starting to code or design, just
starting a Word doc and putting all my ideas down. Sometimes you just need to
get things out of your system, no matter if it's coding or writing. The
advantage of writing a project outline is that it's easier to pick up later,
since it's not a bunch of half-finished code. The second advantage is that
it's easy to add on ideas spontaneously, since you just need to write them
down instead of coding them. Third advantage is that if you ever have time to
actually do a project, you have a clear outline and direction of what you need
to do.

So try writing instead of coding.

------
thibaut_barrere
I think you're most likely subject to some kind of procrastination. I call
this and similar phenomenons "brain bugs".

A common pattern in that area: not finishing a project avoids any confirmation
that the idea itself was bad, because the idea is not really unvalidated, as
the execution isn't complete.

Any way to reinforce the inner confidence is helpful here. In my case, non-
violent communication (<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892005034>)
has been very helpful to understand the inners of procrastination.

Understanding "brain bugs" as I call them is a fascinating and rewarding road
:)

------
JesseAldridge
I had a similar problem. The cause was simple: New projects are fun. After a
while any project becomes boring and we find ourselves longing for something
more interesting to work on. Our minds are good at rationalizing away
unpleasantries.

The solution is also simple: Just do it. Treat it like a job. Understand that
it's not going to be fun. Passion burns brightly and then fades away. You're
going to need to make a schedule -- a routine you can build your life around.
Work on the project for, say, three hours a day. Then it's just a matter of
grinding out the weeks and months until your done.

------
colinplamondon
It sounds like you have side projects, not products.

Have any of your unfinished projects actually been good products? It's one
thing to have a side project and play with a new technology over the weekend-
that's cool, but it isn't a product. It's like when people post 'Ask HN:
Review my startup!" and it's some twitter app they threw together in a
weekend. That's not a product, it's a side project. Side projects can turn
into products over time, but it's usually a tough transition.

A product has to be marketed. A product has to have you communicating with
customers. A product needs a price.

------
thenduks
One thing to keep in mind is that it's totally normal to have a ton of
unfinished experiments and stuff lying around. When you start a new
project/experiment write yourself a note in your calendar in, say, 8 months to
go look at it. By the time that comes around you'll either be done (and feel
good about it) or think to yourself "oh _yeah_ I forgot about that" and at
least look through the code to critique it.

As for the not finishing stuff at work... That sounds more like burnout to me.
If you aren't passionate about your job start looking for a new one!

------
praptak
The latest post on zenhabits is about bringing things to completion:
<http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/completion-principles/>

------
moron4hire
Set disincentives for failing to finish. For example, register the domain name
for your project and buy hosting before you finish. This way, you'll have the
ticking clock of hosting fees without any revenue from ads to herd you on
schedule.

I also enlist the help of friends. I tell people about the projects that I
want to finish, and I keep them up to date about them. If I slack off, they
ask me "so, how's it going on that project?" One friend of mine has agreed to
punch me if I don't finish one particular project.

------
Kilimanjaro
My own experience:

I have more than 100 open projects in my hard drive right now. Had thousands
more in older pcs and floppies that I abandoned when new technology arrived,
from basic to pascal, C, java, python, ruby, etc. Right now, only in node.js I
have like ten projects open.

So, am I worried about never finishing them? not at all.

I see them as learning projects, they filled an empty slot in my brain which
expanded my knowledge and experience.

They call it 'the next shiny thing', I call it learning.

Look! Flusspferd!

\- me opens another project -

------
InclinedPlane
First, you have to make sure you have definite and achievable goals. And you
need to break down the long-range goals into short-range goals.

Second, you need to make sure that you're working on projects that are
actually worthwhile. It's no sin to stop working on a project if it's not
worth it, you need to make sure you prioritize which projects are actually
worth getting done.

Third, you need to av~ _ooo, a shiny, I'll finish this later_

------
sumeetjain
Read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. It's a very, very short read -
modeled after "The Art of War".

The book is composed of quick strategic/tactical lessons for fighting the
battle against Resistance - that ever-devious foe that draws its strengths
from our weaknesses.

[http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/04...](http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/0446691437)

------
johnl
It might be as easy as modularizing your projects after the initial
conceptualizing the project before beginning the programming, That second step
makes starting, stopping and debugging the programming a lot easier. Break the
project in small separate parts, then schedule to program each part without
thinking about the larger final project. Before you know it, projects done.

------
richardw
<http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/>

<http://www.procrastinus.com/> \- has some theories and treatment -
[http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/treatment.ph...](http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/treatment.php)

Good luck.

------
dangrossman
Maybe you're not supposed to be taking these projects from start to finish. In
a lot of companies, the programmer isn't the guy that does the UI web design,
but the project isn't finished without both. It's OK that the programmer never
finishes the project, he took the job because that's the role he wants, not to
be a jack of all trades.

------
yason
People aren't black and white but you might just be a starter instead of a
finisher.

Some people are really good at starting and creating new projects up until
they get the guts of the project right and then gradually lose interest.

Other people can't really come up with anything by themselves but given a
start, will gladly work to finish it and become experts while at it.

------
jacoblyles
I have a very similar problem and I've tried a lot of the solutions offered
here. The only thing that works for me is to work on projects with people that
have the focus and motivation that I lack. My "keep myself focused and on
task" ability is very low, my "don't let other people down" ability is very
high. I plan accordingly.

------
elmindreda
<http://www.autistics.org/library/inertia.html>

------
mcantelon
One thing that might help is have a whiteboard in your house in a place you
will frequently see it. Write the name of any project you want to finish on
it. Write the name of any new projects on it. It might counteract, to some
degree, the tendency to ignore projects you're bored with in favour of the new
shiny project.

------
GavinB
Rather than view things from a large project view, set achievable daily goals.
Then let yourself feel the satisfaction of succeeding at your goal each day.
If you get into this habit, then you'll find that a few months later you've
actually created something worth having.

Set small goals, and celebrate success.

------
dminor
Break your projects down into the smallest goals that are useful. Give
yourself a time frame to finish the first one. Ask yourself how much $ the
first goal is worth to you, and set it aside to pay yourself. If you don't
finish in time, give the $ to charity. Re-evaluate and repeat.

------
rodrigo
Same thing here, so maybe my 2 cents can help; Make three broad stages for
every project (research & design, implementation, knowledge transfer &
communication) and then undertake each phase as one project with its own
challenges; that way I fool myself into finishing it.

------
gte910h
I think you're likely a perfectionist or overly-ambitious person.

You need to learn to make a small project that does very little then build on
that.

If you have a project you need to get done at work, do it by doing the
dirtiest hack possible that gets it done, then improve it in steps while you
have time.

------
erik
Read the book _MindSet_ by Carol Dweck. I suspect it might give you some
insight into your problem.

------
floodfx
Maybe join a team for your next project. There seems to be a lot of advice to
pick a small individual project (which I agree with) but it may be helpful to
be part of a team to start. Stay on a team until you get a few wins and go
from there.

------
roundsquare
Have you tried the nudge solution? Create a disincentive for not finishing by
some deadline.

Note: If anyone has tried this and think its a horrible idea, please say so. I
haven't personally tried it.

~~~
nico
For people with trouble doing stuff like the OP, it is very hard to enforce an
incentives or disincentives way to work, since it depends on you. And why
would you punish yourself if you don't have to? or why would you delay
gratification for something if you don't have to?

I can tell you that if for example I were to buy a chocolate and tell myself
that after doing something I could eat the chocolate, then if I can't do it, I
will just say f it and eat the chocolate anyway!

------
pella
[http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources/cirillo/ThePomodo...](http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources/cirillo/ThePomodoroTechnique_v1-3.pdf)

------
est
My personal tip: When working really well and high, stop, just take a break,
spare your time, don't get tired, so you can easily pickup your work later and
continue.

------
BenS
Tell people you care about that you are starting a project. Keep them up to
date on your progress. Your friends and your ego can be powerful motivators to
finish.

------
chrischen
Break your task into manageable chunks. Plan out the stuff so that when you
finish each small chunk it feels like you've actually accomplished something.

------
bokonist
Try adopting scrum ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)> ).

------
daniel-cussen
It might be a chemical problem for which there are no behavioral solutions.
Investigate AADD and think about seeing a psychiatrist about it.

------
known
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_syndrome> ?

------
elv
1) baby steps

2) read "talent is overrated" to understand why IQ is useless compared to
being able to work hard for a long time

------
ilaksh
I think that this is only really a problem for people that have to do actual
work. The best solution might be to move into management. Then, after you
promise the project will be finished at such and such time, it will be easy to
keep asking your developers why it isn't done yet.

Also, I have heard that Ritalin and Adderall are good for this sort of thing.
Seriously. You've got to fight chemistry with chemistry.

------
c1sc0
pick a ridiculously small 'project', say 'bring my unread mail count to 0',
focus on it & finish it. allow yourself to feel good about it for a
ridiculously small amount of time, say 'the time it takes to finish a glass
champagne'. Now, pick something bigger. rinse, repeat

------
Tomer
before you start the project create a couple of items mentioning tests that
would test that the project is done. Then when you want to leave/mark project
as completed while its not, run these tests (manual) if you dont pass the
tests you didn't complete, complete it!

------
nico
It took me about 3 days to finish reading everything here (I skimmed though,
so maybe I cheated).

------
cwilson
This advice is simply from personal experience and doesn't come from a book or
article posted elsewhere:

There is a reason human beings gravitate towards one another. We are not meant
to live, work, or play alone (though some people are better at it then
others). I would suggest taking a look at how you are approaching projects
from the get go. Are you tackling everything worthy of being called a
"project" all by yourself?

You mentioned you have a track record of shame that forces you to seek help.
Why are you waiting until everything is falling apart to ask for help? Have
you ever tried asking someone to help you out with a project from the
beginning? I don't think there has ever been a circumstance in my life where
someone has asked me for help or I have asked someone else for help and the
answer has been, "no".

That's my 20,000 feet view at what I imagine might be your issue based on the
very small information I know about you. You could also look into some of the
other character traits that people who DO finish projects have:

Organization: Are you organized? Do you stay organized throughout the project
or blow your load for the first week and everything is essentially in shambles
the rest of the project lifecycle?

Planning: This is in many cases one in the same as organization, but do you
plan before hand? Do you turn that planning into a list or tasks, milestones,
or any other form of breaking something big down into a bunch of smaller and
easier to obtain tasks?

Focus: Do you over extend yourself or do you focus on one thing at a time?
Again, this is very closely related to organization and planning. I've often
taken on too many projects and the results are never good; things are rushed,
quality lessens, and every now and then a deadline is even missed.

Communication: Do you talk to everyone involved in the project throughout the
project lifecycle? Do you set realistic expectations? How in the know is
everyone involved in the project other then you? Is your process transparent
to everyone else working around you? I'd highly suggest at least doing one
small thing if you change nothing about your process: Pick one person at the
beginning of your project, it doesn't matter who they are (in some cases this
person is your boss and expects this of you anyway), and decide you are going
to update them every day/week/whatever on how you are doing with said project.
Even if it's a friend, it doesn't matter, the process of doing this will
really help you keep things together. It almost turns into project management
therapy.

At the end of the day however, while all of these things are great to focus on
and improve on, you can't do any of this alone. People are not weak for asking
for help, they are stronger, and personally I respect them much more then the
lone warrior who is either too scared or too cocky to ask for help.

------
alexk
Find a partner, you will be helping each other to keep things up.

------
Todd
Like many (most?) here, I have faced the same problem in the past and continue
to. The difference is that over the past several years, I've figured out how
to do it.

It all boils down to persistence, diligence, and work. As others have said,
intelligence has nothing to do with it. Intelligence can sometimes be a
negative because a) creative people often flit from idea to idea and, b) it
can breed perfectionism--the killer of finishing.

I agree with many of the other posters (including pg) that you should start
small and get a feeling for what it's like to finish. It also helps to talk
well to yourself. The subconscious has a powerful sway over our feelings of
self-esteem, unwitting self-sabotage, etc. Napoleon Hill and others talk about
this. The self-talk can seem cheesy but it works, and completing small things
gives you a foundation for this.

As for larger projects, there are a few important considerations. First, you
must pick a project you believe in and will be willing to commit part of your
life to (6 months?, 2 years?...). Next, you must be willing to put aside other
ideas and projects in favor of it (mostly). As long as you are moving forward
regularly, you can make exceptions, but you must have only one main project.

Next, you must break your project down into milestones. This is common sense
and well understood if you program for a living. Each milestone has to be
measurable so you can tell when you're done with it (and check it off). I know
this sounds basic but the reason everyone keeps repeating it is that it works.
You should also do something, however small, every day. Google Seinfeld's
breaking the chain post on lifehacker for a technique to use here.

Finally, it helps to have a powerful motivator attached at the meta level to
your project. This can be accomplished by partnering with someone. (Partnering
has the benefit of helping to establish and maintain momentum. This is very
important but can also be addressed through daily activity, as described
above.) For me, it was hitting near bottom financially while living abroad. I
had taken my family to live in Europe without the help of a company. We did it
ourselves by saving and borrowing for two years--a very difficult undertaking.
When this occurred, I swore to myself that I would never allow that to happen
again. Every step since has been focused on the goal of financial
independence. It has become an obsession. So I have a strong motivator to
attach to projects. It sounds like you have a strong motivator as well. It
really needs to become a daily obsession.

In order to feed my obsession, I read books about it and about people who have
overcome similar situations. This keeps it in the forefront of my mind and
week by week I'm also building a better and better knowledge base of how other
people have accomplished the same thing. With this motivational force behind
you, when you turn to your primary project, it's easier to move it forward a
bit.

Surprisingly, wealth building and doing great things (building non-profits,
etc.) all have very much in common. They are built by achievers. Achievers are
merely people who move things forward little by little--relentlessly.

------
thedp
I know what you mean. I have a similar problem myself. People like us have a
major flaw in our personality, we get bored way too fast. We get all excited
when we have a new idea or receive a new project and put ourselves into it,
but then all that energy get burned and we dump the project, usually without
even realizing we did so.

Many times we dump a project because we get all excited about something new
and the cycle starts again.

I wish I could tell you, and I myself, that there is a simple solution to this
problem, but there isn't. You just need to stick to a current project and
don't allow yourself to get dragged into a new one. Find reasons to complete
the current project, try to remember why you even started working on it in the
first place.

Another thing I suggest you should do, is list your goals. Define completion.
And I suggest you leave previous projects alone, because there is no point of
fighting the past, stick with the present.

Hope this helps.

------
schammy
You're either capable of completing a project, or you aren't. If you've had
trouble with this your whole life, it's unlikely this will change. It's just
who you are.

Don't be offended. It sucks, but it's reality. Some people do, some people
don't.That's the way it is.

/awaiting mass downvotes

~~~
nico
I agree with you about people not changing, people seldom change and it is a
very long process, not something you can just choose and do in one day. On the
other hand, I believe there are some things you can do about it in this case
and try to play to your strengths.

Anyway, I'm struggling with pretty much the same problems as the OP, a few
years ago I was diagnosed with ADD and was given Ritalin. I didn't like taking
Ritalin and it didn't help very much anyway. The thing is you create bad
habits, so even if you are taking some meds, you still have those habits and
repeat them.

I have now decided that I'm not flawed, but only lost. It seems there's not
much place in the world for ADD people. But I'm not giving up, I don't want to
change who I am, I want to find where can I fit in and use my strengths.

I just bought the book "Delivered from Distraction" and got it yesterday.
Today I read the intro and seems like a good read. I hope it helps.

------
gilesbowkett235
I used to have your problem. In 2009 I said I would make a new miniapp every
month. I failed most months. I also said I would make a new mp3 (of electronic
dance music) every day. I failed something like 1 out of every 3 days.
However, the pressure from both projects, especially the daily mp3 project,
changed my life.

In order to stay on point with the daily mp3 project, I bought an iPhone app
called Streaks and marked an X on my calendar every day I made an mp3. Soon I
was posting mp3s every day like clockwork. Since it worked so well, I started
adding new calendars. I quickly had more calendars than Streaks could handle
and the app slowed to a crawl, so I switched to a paper calendar on my wall
and some thin Crayola markers. I now have, and have had for months, a daily
real-time paper dashboard of how all my habit-generating projects are
proceeding.

The key is to focus on generating habits rather than accomplishing goals. To
understand why, consider the phenomenon of passive income. Passive income is
money which comes from projects that make you money. A person who works at a
job trades time for money. A person who builds passive income projects
decouples time from money, and puts their time into building something which
will, once built, generate money for them autonomously.

Every programmer should know that tight coupling leads to bad OO design. It
also leads to bad business structure. Passive income wins over working for a
living because you get a much more enjoyable lifestyle. Instead of working to
make money, you create things, and those things make money for you.

In the same way that passive income gets you money on autopilot, when you
focus on habits instead of goals, you accomplish your goals on autopilot. You
decouple time from money with passive income; when you generate the right
habits, you decouple effort from results. You put a little time in to create a
passive income project, and thereafter it generates money for you; you put a
little effort in to create habits, and thereafter your habit gets results for
you.

When I got in the habit of creating mp3s every day and marking each daily mp3
on a calendar, I didn't just establish the habit of making music every day. I
also established the habit of completing a tiny project every day. This is the
part that changed my life. Over the past year, I have morphed from a
completely disorganized person into an unusually organized one. I used to
never even make a to-do list; now I have an original planning and organizing
system with three separate layers. All this happened because I started by
establishing the habit of completing projects.

When the mp3 thing started working well and I started tracking many other
desired daily habits, I created a pattern of working to complete small tasks
every day. The brain is a fantastic pattern-matching machine, and if you focus
on creating habits, your brain will generalize out to broader things. Since I
was in the habit of tracking my music and my workouts, I soon fell into the
habit of tracking how often I ate the way I wanted to eat and even how often I
put gas in my car. Once I had established these habits, of tracking nearly
everything on paper, it became absolutely trivial to make and complete to-do
lists every day, and to track my finances, my weight, and my sleep schedule on
a daily basis.

Remember, this took me a year. But all you have to do to get started is pick
one thing you really care about, more than anything else, and make a deal with
yourself that you will do at least one tiny bit of work on that one thing
every single day. Put that on your calendar, mark an X on the day every time,
and don't break the chain. That's the Seinfeld method (google "Seinfeld
Lifehacker"). If you want to expand that method to something more
sophisticated like me, it will be easy to do, AFTER you have taken the time to
establish this habit of completing one tiny project every single day.

If you do what I just told you, your problem will be solved for the rest of
your life.

