How to Become a Finisher

Whilst on a geeky google trawl I found this on http://www.chrisg.com/procrastination-fixer-finisher/, swap the words product/project for quilt and I have a list of prompts to turn this Starter towards being a finisher!

1. Set yourself achievable goals – Some people are motivated by stretch goals, but if you are the sort of person who would take the instruction to “reach for the stars” literally and start planning your trip to NASA, perhaps a more realistic goal is in order. Also, remember, don’t try to eat the whole elephant in one gulp. Break the project or challenge down into chewable bite sized pieces.
2. Decide what the finished end product will look like before you start – If your tasks are presented as “get better at sports”, “get fitter” or “learn to cook”, how on earth will you know when you are done? You can always get better, learn more, be more. Decide how you will know when you are done. Make tasks that are “done or not done”, a tick in a box. When your tasks are complete … stop.
3. Focus on delivering – What is the basic feature set your product MUST have? Just do that. How can you complete the project in the most simple, pragmatic way? Do that. My last project was to release a new product. I decided it was not complete until someone had bought it because otherwise I could have written a whole ebook and not released it. By saying someone had to have bought it that meant I knew I needed a buy button, a sales page, and needed to let people know it was there. I also put a deadline on it to stop me endlessly polishing. This meant in the end I launched it without a logo or any of the other aesthetic niceities that I would have endlessly fussed over. So far a couple of hundred people have bought it and enjoyed it. Nobody has complained about the lack of logo .
4. Make progress and celebrate it – We often get into a gold medal mentality where there is only a winner and a whole bunch of losers. Sorry but that is just rubbish. So what if your product launch didn’t raise a million dollars? So what if so-and-so has a gajillion RSS subscribers and you don’t. Celebrate the one customer you have. Celebrate the 100 people who want to hear from you. Then set your next goal. Be proud of the achievments you do create rather than sad that you are not living up to some fake ideal.