Charlie Gilkey - Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done

For Mom, who placed so many peoples thriving above her own, and Dad, who in another place and time wouldve stunned the world with what he finished.

It is always about the work. In the latter years of your life, your happiness and your self-esteem will be determined by the mountains you surmounted, the valleys you climbed out of, and the life and/or career that you forged for yourself.

MAYA ANGELOU, Rainbow in the Cloud

CONTENTS

Why its time to focus on projects rather than ideas | The link between your best work and thriving | How living in a project world gives us freedom at the cost of uncertainty | What to do if your interests are all over the place | Why projects are bridges and mirrors | What separates the change makers from the sideliners

Whats really in the middle of the air sandwich between your big picture and day-to-day reality | Marc and Angel Chernoff: What Else Could This Mean? | The 5 keys to unlocking your best work | The difference between positive and negative boundaries | How we confuse courage and clarity | Discipline creates freedom | James Clear: The Difference Between Professionals and Amateurs | Getting clear about your competing priorities helps you make better plans and commitments | Ishita Gupta: Build Your Courage Muscle

Why thrashing is a sign that something matters to you | How not doing your best work leads to creative constipation | Were built to slay dragons | The 3 gifts of failure | Chelsea Dinsmore: What to Do When Life Changes Your Plans | How not being able to do everything at once is a gift once you accept it | Why you have to let go of some ideas to trade up to the best ones | Susan Piver: Should Your Break Up with Your Idea? | 5 questions to help you sort through what matters most

How to convert an idea into a SMART goal | The 3 levels of success and why you cant do everything at the epic level | No date, no finish | The 4 kinds of people to put in your success pack | Pamela Slim: The Principles of Enrolling a Guide | The 5 steps to activate your success pack

You dont find time and space for your best workyou make time and space for it | What playing with building blocks taught us about bending time | How to use the project pyramid to break down your big projects into smaller ones | 34 common project verbs that make planning easier | Using the Five Projects Rule to prioritize and plan your work | The 4 kinds of blocks that power your best work and life | 3 focus blocks per week avoids a thrash crash

The difference between a flat list and a road map | Using your GATES to fuel your project | Jonathan Fields: Your GATES Point to a Deeper Spark | 5 categories to consider for every project budget | Jacquette M. Timmons: Your Money Needs You to Give It Direction | Deadlines guide your project; capacity drives your project | The 7 steps to building your project road map

Why every plan has drag points | The 3 kinds of no-win scenarios we often dont realize were telling ourselves | Jeff Goins: The Myth of the Starving Artist | Why we choose mediocrity and what it really costs us | Seth Godin: Only the Tall Poppy Gets Full Sunlight | Dont be down with OPP (other peoples priorities) | 9 ways to handle derailers and naysayers | Jeffrey Davis: Let Wonder Intervene with Derailers | 6 questions to ask during your project premortem

How momentum planning keeps you going | The 7 environmental factors to make work for you | Joshua Becker: How a Minimalist Workspace Enhances Focus | Why batching and stacking makes you more efficient | The relationship between frogs and your dread-to-work ratio | When youre working can be more critical than what youre working on | Mike Vardy: You Dont Have to Be an Early Riser to Be Productive | Rethinking first things first | The 5/10/15 Split makes daily momentum planning a breeze | Why planning too far in advance can be much worse than a waste of time

3 ways to celebrate small winsand why its important to do so | Srinivas Rao: Dont Break the Chain | 6 routines that will help minimize decision fatigue | What Hansel and Gretel taught us about project management | 10 ways to mitigate distractions and interruptions | Cascades, logjams, and tarpits3 ways projects get stuck and how to handle them | How to get your projects through the creative red zone

The underappreciated reasons why we should run victory laps | Transition time and space between projects help us avoid burnout | Todd Kashdan: Curating and Trimming Relationships | The value of CAT time | How after-action reviews make your next projects easier | 5 doors you may have unlocked by completing your project

PART 1

CLEARING THE DECKS FOR YOUR BEST WORK

SOMEDAY CAN BE TODAY

The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.

JULIETTE GORDON LOW, How Girls Can Help Their Country

Take a moment and think about the last two weeks of your life. How much of your time and attention has been focused on things that truly matter to you?

Most peoples honest answer is, Not enough.

Buried under busywork, responsibility, distraction, and fatigue sit the difference-making and joy-producing ideas, waiting for someday...

when the times right,

when this projects over,

when you have a little more money,

when the kids are grown,

when you get a more understanding boss,

or... someday.

The trouble is someday never comes on its own.

My goal with this book is to get you to decide that today is the day you stop waiting and start finishing.

The reason Im guiding you to finish rather than start is because Im near certain that youve already started quite a few things. Somewhere along the way, in physical, mental, and digital drawers, those brilliant ideas are waiting on the someday that youll get back to them and figure out what actually needs to happen to get the ideas out into the world.

Starting only stuffs more stuff into those already-full drawers.

Enough is enough.

YOU KNOW YOURE NOT WORKING ON WHAT MATTERS MOST

It would be extremely presumptive for me to claim you have some unfinished important projects were it not for the fact that Ive yet to find a person who hasnt had an idea or project that theyve hidden away. Even the extremely successful professionals Ive interviewed and run with admit that theres something calling to them that theyre not getting to.

It would be one thing if you didnt know you werent working on what matters most, for we all often get distracted and trapped under busywork. But theres a part of you that knows its there and wont let it go. That part sees a world above the noise, ephemera, and getting by and it sees a path to get there.

Unfortunately that path is just a formless idea. We dont do ideas; we do projects.

By project I mean anything that takes time, energy, and attention to complete. Theres no difference between a work project or a personal project when it comes to pulling from the limited time, energy, and attention we have. The difference comes in the way we prioritize work and personal projects, with the former given more weight because theyre much more tied to our livelihood, status, and identities than the latter.

Just to be clear...

Im belaboring the point here because those kinds of projects too often arent counted as projects, but they use time, energy, and attention. Many people end up with their days filled with projects they arent counting, but what does count to them are counted projects that arent getting done.