I have a trail of unfinished and not even started projects that have accumulated over the years. Stretching all the way back to my school days.
Had a bit of a depression a couple of years back when I realized that I'm not actually going to live long enough to get even half of them done even if I worked hard at it in every hour of my free time.
That's when I started to try an develop the habit of only tackling small projects or sub projects, if it can't be done and finished, now, today, for the fun of it, don't even think about it.
Or as the article puts it "Do it in the moment, or not at all."
Do you imagine what it will feel like to have this project under your belt, and what kind of effect it will have on your life?
I'm not sure I know this feeling.....thing just seem to go on forever.
This all just piles up into one vicious cycle: you become overwhelmed, you recognize you really need to do something about the problem, you decide to get organized, you have a grand plan for organizing, you start executing this plan, something disrails it (it was a *GRAND* plan, afterall), another project in flight, more idea debt, more "whelm" creeps up on you, lather, rinse, repeat......
OK, so the goal is to pull things out of my project box, um, cabinet, err, room, uhhh, warehouse, break them into manageable pieces and just have fun with that part if the parts end up going into a whole, great, if they end up going into a hole, that's fine too.
I did invest some time in organizing things in teh shop a while back. Since then I have worked on a few project pieces. I have been very satisified with the abiltiy to need a part, walk into my workshop, open a labeled (yes, labeled) drawer and pull out the needed part and go right back to my project. I'm so glad I invented the idea of putting parts into drawers adn labeling them....if I didn't just recently invent it, I'm sure I would have known about it and tried it before, no??
Problem is that the organizing itself becomes a project. That never gets done like all the projects that are to be organized.
Back when I was twenty something I already noticed this phenomena. My solution then was to bin everything. Or give it away if I could. Hit the reset button as it were.
For a year I lived in a baron and very tidy place with no undone projects calling to me.
For most of my life, the most desirable and the most daunting type of project involved the construction of aircraft for personal use. Hanging around a small airport near my home, the teenage me was impressed by something the owner of a beautiful and very desirable homebuilt plane said. He stated that building his plane was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, but that if there were a key to finishing it, it was to commit to doing something on it every day.
As in the snowboarding analogy, stopping is anathema to completion.
For most of my life, the most desirable and the most daunting type of project involved the construction of aircraft for personal use. Hanging around a small airport near my home, the teenage me was impressed by something the owner of a beautiful and very desirable homebuilt plane said. He stated that building his plane was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, but that if there were a key to finishing it, it was his commitment to doing something on it every day.
As in the snowboarding analogy, stopping is anathema to completion.
Yup, I need to *DO* more and *THINK* less. You can always do something over if you mess up but if you sit and fret about messing up, you never even do it the first time!
One of the best posts that I have read in a long time, and so true.
I am glad I decided to check the Prop forum tonight, it made my day.
We should all be so blessed to do what we love. Now vanquish your ideas into action, onward, forward, conquer
Perhaps the most onerous task I've ever been faced with was writing a dissertation. And I hate writing. What made it happen was setting a quota of 15 hand-written, double-spaced pages per day. I stuck with it every weekday, and once those 15 pages were completed, I stopped for the day to enjoy what was left of it. It worked. Otherwise, I would've been chasing an ever-retreating deadline and would probably still be in school today!
We haven't even finished painting all of the rooms in my house and my wife is already wanting to change a color in the first room we did.
The project that led me to the Propeller - an IBM 1130 emulator - I thought was going to be about 3 months, tops. 6 years later, I'm still thinking of ways to make it better.
. What made it happen was setting a quota of 15 hand-written, double-spaced pages per day. I stuck with it every weekday, and once those 15 pages were completed, I stopped for the day to enjoy what was left of it. It worked. Otherwise, I would've been chasing an ever-retreating deadline and would probably still be in school today!
I'm glad you made it out of school! I think we're all numbers guys, and also deadline-driven and goal-oriented. When I'm in serious training for some upcoming race/event (it helps to have a fixed deadline), I give myself a weekly mileage goal, and log every mile. If I slack off today, then I have to do more tomorrow. Silly, but it works for me. I always make my numbers.
Comments
Jim
I have a trail of unfinished and not even started projects that have accumulated over the years. Stretching all the way back to my school days.
Had a bit of a depression a couple of years back when I realized that I'm not actually going to live long enough to get even half of them done even if I worked hard at it in every hour of my free time.
That's when I started to try an develop the habit of only tackling small projects or sub projects, if it can't be done and finished, now, today, for the fun of it, don't even think about it.
Or as the article puts it "Do it in the moment, or not at all."
I'm not sure I know this feeling.....thing just seem to go on forever.
This all just piles up into one vicious cycle: you become overwhelmed, you recognize you really need to do something about the problem, you decide to get organized, you have a grand plan for organizing, you start executing this plan, something disrails it (it was a *GRAND* plan, afterall), another project in flight, more idea debt, more "whelm" creeps up on you, lather, rinse, repeat......
OK, so the goal is to pull things out of my project box, um, cabinet, err, room, uhhh, warehouse, break them into manageable pieces and just have fun with that part if the parts end up going into a whole, great, if they end up going into a hole, that's fine too.
I did invest some time in organizing things in teh shop a while back. Since then I have worked on a few project pieces. I have been very satisified with the abiltiy to need a part, walk into my workshop, open a labeled (yes, labeled) drawer and pull out the needed part and go right back to my project. I'm so glad I invented the idea of putting parts into drawers adn labeling them....if I didn't just recently invent it, I'm sure I would have known about it and tried it before, no??
Problem is that the organizing itself becomes a project. That never gets done like all the projects that are to be organized.
Back when I was twenty something I already noticed this phenomena. My solution then was to bin everything. Or give it away if I could. Hit the reset button as it were.
For a year I lived in a baron and very tidy place with no undone projects calling to me.
I have not been brave enough to do that since....
As in the snowboarding analogy, stopping is anathema to completion.
"Enough is perfect", right?
I am glad I decided to check the Prop forum tonight, it made my day.
We should all be so blessed to do what we love. Now vanquish your ideas into action, onward, forward, conquer
-Phil
We haven't even finished painting all of the rooms in my house and my wife is already wanting to change a color in the first room we did.
The project that led me to the Propeller - an IBM 1130 emulator - I thought was going to be about 3 months, tops. 6 years later, I'm still thinking of ways to make it better.
Walter
I'm glad you made it out of school! I think we're all numbers guys, and also deadline-driven and goal-oriented. When I'm in serious training for some upcoming race/event (it helps to have a fixed deadline), I give myself a weekly mileage goal, and log every mile. If I slack off today, then I have to do more tomorrow. Silly, but it works for me. I always make my numbers.