Key to Simplicity : Finishing What You Start

Life gets complicated when our to-do lists get too long.  Of course, that list is guaranteed to get longer and longer when we leave projects half finished.

Finish what you start.  That’s the mantra around here.

Have you ever seen a half-painted house?  They’re everywhere around here.  Why didn’t the person who started the job just finish?  Now the house just looks awkward.  The brushes are missing.  The paint has dried up.  It’s been years.

The problems with leaving projects half done are:

  1. You always feel anxious about the project – how it looks, how you’re going to get it finished, when so-and-so is finally going to finish, how you’ve failed…
  2. You forget about the project – but you’re still uptight and stressed without actually knowing the reason.  (hello living in a house while you’re remodeling it!)
  3. The people around you feel anxiety, too.
  4. Or you tuck it away.  You don’t even notice. You just keep tucking away more and more half-finished projects.  Then it takes you twice as long to clean up.  Or someone has to come clean up the problem for you.

(Itemizing unfinished/needed repairs at the tire house)

Why is it SO HARD to finish what we start?

My brother wrote:

If you’re anything like me, then you always have a couple of projects open. It always seems like I am opening more projects than I am closing. In fact it is quite daunting when look at this ever growing mountain of work you are creating for yourself.

The big problem with having to many projects open at one time is that you are always feeling behind.  The reason you feel that way is because it is true!

I know how hard it is to finish stuff.  The BIG stuff.  The little stuff.

I can come up with quick excuses as to why I didn’t finish something. You too?  The excuses are really good, aren’t they?  The phone rang.  Your arm got tired from painting.  You had to go to this other task.  You got restless.

You cannot live a simple life when you make it a habit of never finishing what you start.

Why are we making excuses, only to turn around and feel overwhelmed by our to-do lists?

(finishing cupboard doors for our Berlin kitchen)

I know why my brother and I keep thinking of starting new things: they’re new.  New is fun.  It’s exciting.  Our society keeps marketing that old is boring.

So how about a little challenge?  This week, make old fun.  haha!  How do you suppose we can pull that off?  Here’s the dare.  I’m just focusing on the little things.  Oh but the little things can add up when you start looking at your entire house.

So try one of these little things:

  1. Pull out some of those unused, random foods in the pantry. You know – the weird ones.  Incorporate them into a meal.  After all, they probably made it to your house with great intentions for a new recipe, or you only used half in the new recipe, right?
  2. Grab an old craft project that you started. Start working on it, repurpose it, or get rid of it this week.
  3. Start reading a book that you’ve always meant to read. Pick up a book that you always meant to finish.  Or donate it to the library.
  4. Donate old contact lenses and glasses. Do you actually think you might need them?  Probably not.
  5. Patch old nail holes in your walls. Sand and paint over them.
  6. Clean out a filing cabinet. Scan papers.  Shred them.  Or organize them.
  7. Recycle old cds.
  8. Fix something in your yard that’s been broken all winter long.
  9. How about something HUGE that’s just not getting finished? Can you take little steps toward it?

Oh – and here are some little tricks for putting all of your attention on a task:

  • Don’t move onto the next thing until you’re finished.
  • Or if you do need to step away, set a timer.  When it goes off, return to the task you were working on.

So what do you say?  Shall we all go finish a little something we started?  Just think – there’s a group of us here at Making This Home all undertaking a few finishes, too.  What’ll you pick?

(first image source)