Take reading a book for example. I have a stack of unfinished books. One being "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire. After reading a huge chunk of it, I started collecting all of his other books, making plans to read them all after I was done with "Wicked". But I never finished it. And I never read any of those other books. That collection moved with me to several different houses, and I think I've had them for almost ten years, just sitting on my shelf. Recently, I've been really diving deep into the decluttering and realized that if I really had wanted to finish "Wicked", I would have, and holding onto the entire collection of books was just silly. I wasn't into that genre anymore and haven't been for quite some time. So why did I have them? If I were to listen to Marie Kondo, those books bring me lots of joy, and I'd have held onto them forever. The idea of reading them excited me. But I never did. And most likely wouldn't have until some far date in the future. And forcing myself to finish "Wicked" just so I could read those books, too, well, that's just nuts. I am a reader who rotates genres, and what I've been reading the past few years are women's thrillers, dystopian fantasy, and currently I am reading a fable called "Once Upon a River" (it's excellent, by the way). "Wicked" just didn't fit into those genres, nor did the rest of the Maguire collection. So, I stacked them all up (along with all my Jodi Picoult novels I haven't read yet) and donated them. I kept "Wicked", just in case one day I want to finish it. I keep most of my unfinished books, if I think I will maybe one day want to finish them. But the ones I know I won't, I just donate. I think we don't finish certain books because they just don't grab us enough. Or, if you're like me and have ADHD, you wander off to do something else because you're just not that into reading as you thought you were when you were reading it. It happens. And it's okay.
Do you know what was a waste of my time in 2016 when I read over fifty books? Finishing the first book of the year, which was Neil Gaiman's "Stardust". Good lord, that took me five entire weeks to read. FIVE! I just could not get through it. But I forced myself to finish it and it was torture the entire time (sorry Neil...in my personal opinion, your movies are better). It was a total waste of time for me, as I could have read over five books during that time. Five interesting, fun, and immersive books. But instead, I was stuck with one boring and tedious one that I just could not get through, but somehow I did anyways. That was the year I read all of Megan Miranda's books (at the time) as well as Nicola Yoon's books, and all of Lisa Jewel's books (see how my taste in genres change?) and many more. There were so many better options for me that January.
Finishing what I started that year was not productive in the least. In fact, it was a waste of my time.
Other things I have a stack of that are unfinished are many WIPS (works in progress--a phrase writers use for the books they are writing), art projects (like my dollhouse I built--I am really into miniatures), and house projects (like putting in my bathroom floors, for one). I am super slow at getting things done. Especially when they are either tedious or do not interest me. As for my WIPS, those do interest me, but at the same time, they can be tedious, as I have a lot of research to do for many of them. One WIP is fifteen years in the making. And it's not even that long.
But here's the low-down on unfinished things: if something really interested you to finish it, you would have done it already. Sure, there is procrastination involved, and shiny new other things to go do that interest you more, but ask yourself: would my life better right now if I had finished that one thing? The answer is most likely no. The only thing better would be that it would be done and you wouldn't have to think about it. But your life would probably be no different if you had finished the project or read that book to completion or whatever else. Unless it's taking care of your health (life is always better when we take care of our health), you can just go finish the item on a day you have time. Hell, you can do that with your health too, as whatever it is, it's better late than never. Just pick up where you left off and get the thing done when you can.
Now, what if I would have pushed myself to get my bathroom floors done right after we had to tear them up? Would my life be better? Not really. I'd have subflooring in, and I'd have my linoleum put down. But that's it. I have POTS, which causes me to have all over body pain if I do a lot of work (well, in fact, it causes me to be in pain when I do any amount of work, even small stuff like vacuuming), so pushing myself to finish it in a timely manner would mean putting loads of stress on my body, which would have put me out of commission for a while anyways. I am not making excuses as to why it's not done, but at the same time, I know that finishing that task back when it all happened would have only made it so I didn't have to do it now. That would have been my only benefit. Which is okay to me, because I know it will get done. Being productive is not just about finishing what you start, it's also about not letting your unfinished projects stress you out. Because being stressed out is no productive at all.
So, I want you to make a list of all the things you haven't finished yet. Things you've started that just aren't done. Then I want you to go through each one and figure out why it's not done yet. What stopped you? What is not motivating about the project in order to finish it? What have you got done instead? Because sometimes not finishing something means it gives you more room and space to get the things done that either actually need to get done or that interest you more. Then apply what interests you about the things you did get done to the things you haven't, so that way you feel motivated to do it.
Sometimes we're unmotivated because a task is hard or tedious. Some things give us anxiety. Sometimes someone or something else is blocking our way. And other times it's just that task itself is not important enough to finish. And if you find a task that just has ZERO value in your life, feel free to remove it completely from your list of things that need to get done. Just don't ever do it. Do you know how good it feels to cross something off your list that you've been stressing about for so long and to know you never had to do it anyways? Sometimes we build things up in our heads and they are useless things and we just don't realize it.
Being productive isn't always about finishing what we start. It's about doing the things that are important to us and our lives in the times they are important to do. Making calls, sending mail and emails, asking questions, fixing something that is broken that you need to use in the near future, or working on what makes you passionate about life. You are not failure if you put certain things off because they are not important right now (give yourself permission to do them later). You are not a failure even if you put off things that are important right now. Procrastination due to anxiety or depression or whatever else is a very real thing and affects us all.
Not all things we think we need to finish are things we actually need to finish. So, give yourself permission to take some of those things on your list and cross them off. Give yourself permission to say "I will never finish reading 'Wicked', because if I had wanted to finish it, I would have already." And with that, I am taking the book off my shelf today and putting it into my giveaway box in the garage. And one day I'll get around to cleaning and organizing my garage again. But I give myself permission to do that later.
Being productive is about getting done the things in life that you want to get done. Even if others see those as not as important as other things. Don't let others dictate to you what your version of productivity looks like, as it varies with each person. A type A personality thinks that unless everything is perfect, it's not productive. But many of us are not type A's. We're type B's or even type CC's (which stands for creative chaos--if you're creative, you know what I mean). Productivity for type B's and CC's look very different to type A's. That's because our priorities are very different. Living with someone who is a different type of personality than us can be difficult (or even just living in the world in general under the idea that type A is right way, and the rest of are just failures). But being a type B or CC does not mean we aren't productive. It just means we can never live up to a type A's idea of what productive looks like. Instead, we all need to realize that being a type A isn't the only real way to do things. Check out Cas's organizing profiles over at www.Clutterbug.me for tons of great info on this.
So, go through your list of unfinished items (categorized by thing: books, WIPS, house projects, phone calls, etc.) and apply David Allen's system of "Getting Shit Things Done" to them. Find the items that you can do in five minutes or less (or around that amount of time) and do them. Then take the rest and see if any are time sensitive and make a plan to get them done by the time they need to be done by. The rest of the items will be put into two categories: whenever and never. Take the whenever things and put them on a "When I Get Around to It" list and cross the rest off and never do them. Ask yourself, if I never do this, will it matter? If not, then don't do them. Unless you want to.
Then take the "When I Get Around to It" list and ask yourself what you've gotten done instead of doing those things and why did you get those things done? Like in 2020, I wrote FOUR memoirs in a year. FOUR. At around 300+ pages each. But I have so many other WIPS that aren't done. So what made me get those done in such a timely matter? Well, for one, they were easy as hell to write. Writing about the truth of what has happened in my life flows through me like water. But writing fiction or self-help is much slower. Self-help is easier, so I will say it flows through me like maple syrup. But there is a lot of rewriting in that to make my words flow properly, which makes it harder than writing about my life. But writing fiction, while I enjoy it, flows through me like molasses. I have to invent things to say. Sometimes it can flow like water, too. But only if the story feels easy. For years, I pushed myself and pushed myself and pushed myself to finish all my fiction stories. I felt like a total failure never getting any done (to this date, I have finished three entire novels, but I probably have at least 50 WIPS in a seventeen-year time span). But in 2020 I wrote more full-length books then I had in the sixteen-year time span prior. See, I wasn't being lazy or unproductive, I just hadn't found my flow yet. I hadn't found what flowed through me like water.
Sometimes not finishing what you start will bring you to what you were always meant to do instead. Sometimes it will you show you that what you were planning on doing would not have been the right thing and you'll find a better way to do it later. Sometimes not finishing what you start can be the most productive thing you can do.
But for the things that you actually need to get done, just make a list, prioritize them, and get them done when you can. And the things that don't need to get done, just cross them off your list and breathe a sigh of relief. And if you find a task or project or action that's tedious and is not something important to actually get done, then just stop doing it. Don't push yourself to finish what you start if you could be something that's more productive with your time. Like reading a better book. Or many books in the time it takes to read the tedious one. Or whatever the task is. If you hate something, maybe there's a reason you hate it? Maybe there's a better way to be doing it or maybe there's a better thing to be doing all together? Don't blindly push through something without questioning it. Because finishing what you start isn't always the most productive thing to do.
