Day 43: Finish the things you start

One thing has become particularly clear to me on my journey down the rabbit hole of productivity: the fact of how important it is to get things done. Okay, admittedly, this doesn't sound very surprising. What is surprising about it, however, is the why. Of course, things ultimately need to be done to make progress. But above all, it's also about continuously proving to oneself that one is making headway. It's about gaining self-assurance in the certainty that one can complete something. So, finishing things is not important for the sake of the tasks themselves, but primarily for self-certainty.

If you lack the confidence to finish something and you perhaps live in the belief 'I can't do it anyway' or 'I never finish things anyway,' then you will already be disturbed by constant self-doubt during the planning phase. What's the use of all the planning if you don't even have the confidence in yourself to finish anything at all?

Completing things is an important exercise. It's like training a muscle or sharpening a knife. Consider the ability to finish tasks as a tool that you care for and maintain, carefully putting it back in its place and taking it out when you want to work on something.

But how can you train to finish things? Quite simply, by looking for small tasks. Take on a manageable project that you might be able to complete within a day. For example, you could clean out a storage closet at your home and introduce a new organization system. Cleaning projects are wonderful for honing the feeling of getting things done because most of us find it hard to start a cleaning project. We tend too often to procrastinate on this.

Hobbies are also wonderfully suited to building up the feeling of getting things done. A hobby consists of many small projects, where your problem-solving strategies are needed and where you are often asked for pragmatic and unconventional solutions. Think of a model builder developing their own airplane model. Before such a plane is airborne, many hundreds of steps are necessary, and one is repeatedly faced with the situation of having to solve an unforeseen problem. In the end, however, the reward is worth all the previous effort: standing in the green field and watching one's own project become reality. A wonderful hobby!

Whoever possesses the self-assurance to solve any task set before them and to bring it to an end will naturally see every problem as a challenge and not as an obstacle. And those who see challenges instead of obstacles in their lives will not view mountains as a limitation of the horizon, but will use them as a vantage point for looking into the distance.

So go ahead and finish the things you start!