Do you have problems completing what you have started? Do you feel overwhelmed , stressed not knowing how to finish what you start. It may happen to us that we start a task or a project with full enthusiasm and then we lose our focus, interest to do the task or project and then the project is left half completed.
In this article, the tips mentioned could help you to complete and finish the task with the same enthusiasm you have started. Think about how good it would be to finish whatever you have started! There are many advantages of completing the tasks or projects you start like, Let’s have a look at the advantages -
1.Confidence – When you have the habit of completing the tasks completely which you undertake. It increases the confidence and self- esteem you have. So that when you undertake a next task you’ll be more confident that you will complete it.
2. People have more faith in you – When you finish what you start all the tasks or projects that people give you, they will have more faith and respect for you that whatever the task may be you will complete it. When they have an important task to complete they will prefer to give you and you in turn will have more opportunities.
3. Better idea of self – When you finish what you start, you will develop better awareness of your strengths, weakness and interests.
4. More opportunities – Finishing what you start, the tasks/ projects that you have completed fully will give you more opportunities.
5. Joy of completion - When you finish what you start you would experience the joy of completing the task or project.
Here are my favorite tips for finishing what we start -
1. Identify the projects that are important and you want to complete –
A lot of times we have to be selective about the tasks or projects we undertake. It may happen that we have too many projects and we aren’t sure of which projects to complete, in such case if we are clear on which of the projects are important , we can focus , spend time on them and at least get them completed. If you have identified the projects that are important to you and you face a situation where you don’t have much time to complete you can go ahead and complete the important ones. This can prevent the dilemma that arises when you have to choose the tasks/ projects to complete later.
So the first step is to identify the projects and tasks that you must complete and you must know you have to get it complete. Write it down in evernote or diary, put reminders in your to do list that you must complete them
2. Estimate the time and efforts it will take and allocate – It happens that a project would take a lot of time to complete and we haven’t put enough time to complete it this can cause frustration and hurry at the end moment. To prevent this first make an estimate of how much time it could take. Estimate the minimum time within which you can finish the project and the maximum time it can take to complete. Now after estimating put hours of your week ahead into the project. Make sure that you’re spending the required time in your project whether you are monitoring the time and efforts through your journal or task management app
3. Don’t try to do everything perfectly – Many of us are perfectionists and it happens that this quality though it can be helpful can turn out to be a block for completing stuff. We end up spending so much time trying to do everything perfectly and the project never gets completed. To avoid this make sure that you don’t think that you have to do each task/ project perfectly you just have to do them the best as you can within a reasonable amount of time. Do your tasks/ projects the best you can without trying to do each task perfectly.
4 . Find the motivations you need – A lot of time it may happen that we know that a project is very important to us but halfway through the project we lose the motivation to continue. The tasks may seem overwhelming and boring to us. At this time knowing your motivations to do the tasks would help immensely. So at the beginning of the task itself write your motivations for doing and rewards which you can get by doing and keep it in a place visible. If you lose motivation just go through what you have just written. Also you could keep a collection of motivational quotes, videos and songs which you can use to get motivated to do the tasks.
5. Fear of failure – Fear of failure is one of the things that could prevent us from finishing what we start. It happens we are almost about to complete a project and then we could get a fear that we may fail on completion of the project. So we just leave the project thinking that it might fail. So this leads to a lot of wasted efforts as we have spent so much time to reach the position where we are now. In such situations we should realize that even if we fail we would still get experience of completing a project and having it out. This could help us. Just think that failing couldn’t be as bad as we think it might. Complete the project for the experience and not wasting all the efforts we have taken till now.
6. Be happy for what you have accomplished – We focus on what that remains to be completed and get overwhelmed by it. We can get so overwhelmed by it that we may even abandon the project in half. But we should realize that what we have completed till now is also an achievement in itself and we should celebrate for it. Celebrating for what we have completed would motivate us to complete the tasks that are ahead and complete our project.
7. Realize when it might be necessary to quit – Sometimes it may happen that we may lose interest in project. Its normal, our lives change, our priorities change and our interests change all the time. The project may no longer mean something to us unlike how it was when we started. At such times we must realize that it is important to quit and not hurt ourselves or waste further time and effort in it. When the project/ Goals no longer means much to us , we must let go of it and focus on the projects or Goals that are of more value to us.
