In Ricky Robinett's talk at the 2013 DARE conference in London, Failure to Launch, he said,
"even though I had lots of ideas, I failed to launch any of my side projects. I set a goal in 2011 to launch a new side project every month."
And he did launch 12 "quick little projects" in 12 months, some of which failed and some of which were wildly successful.
Ricky's problem resonated with me, as I also have too many ideas and tend to let many projects languish when almost completed.
On the surface, not finishing is just bad time management. I may blame a technical problem or an alluring new distraction, or even the Busy Brain syndrome, but that's a cheat talking. Digging deeper I usually find something murkier. For example: I feared launching a book on Kindle because that's not the end of a project, it's the beginning of a new one, and I'm reluctant to undertake all the marketing and decision-making involved.
So, inspired by Ricky, I decided on a far less ambitious plan: I would make every Friday a Finishing Friday. I've got a long list of projects that are either unfinished or almost finished — and doable.
I stuffed up the first Finishing, launching a novel on Kindle prematurely. No problem: it didn't ruin my life, nobody noticed (oops, now that is a problem) — and it still feels good.
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