How to Stop Procrastinating and Finish Projects
Summary
TLDRThe speaker encourages tackling overwhelming tasks by focusing on the first step, like reading page one of a book. They discuss the pressure of goals and the value of living in the present. Sharing personal experiences, they highlight the importance of starting projects and the satisfaction of completing them, even if only one in ten. The speaker also addresses the guilt of unfinished projects, suggesting that they can be valuable resources for future needs. They emphasize the personal growth and learning that come from engaging with unfinished work and the idea that projects should be completed when they are needed, not just for the sake of completion.
Takeaways
- 📚 Start reading by focusing only on the first page, ignoring the rest.
- 🌳 Living in the present helps to avoid feeling overwhelmed by future goals.
- 🔍 Sometimes, goals can make tasks feel more difficult.
- 📈 Accept that not all projects will be finished; it's okay to have many unfinished ideas.
- 🎯 Prioritize finishing projects that are valuable or in demand.
- 🗒️ The speaker has many notebooks filled with ideas and unfinished projects.
- 💡 It's beneficial to start and work on many projects, even if they aren't all completed.
- 📅 A project that was started years ago can still be valuable when completed later.
- ✍️ Writing, even if unpublished, helps clarify thoughts and ideas.
- 🔑 Unfinished projects can be valuable for learning and self-improvement.
- 🌟 The value of a project is not solely in its completion but in its utility and demand.
Q & A
What is the advice given for starting to read a large book?
-The advice is to start by ignoring all other pages and just focus on reading page one. The action of starting is the same regardless of the book's length.
Why does focusing on the goal of finishing a large book make it harder to start?
-Focusing on the goal can make the task feel overwhelming, which is why it's suggested to live in the present and not be preoccupied with the end result.
What is the speaker's approach to handling unfinished projects?
-The speaker embraces having many unfinished projects, suggesting that it's okay to have a high number of incomplete ideas, as long as some are completed when needed.
Why does the speaker believe it's beneficial to have multiple unfinished projects?
-Having many unfinished projects allows the speaker to be prepared with ideas when the community or a situation requires something, leveraging the strength of being a prolific 'ideator'.
What is the significance of the speaker's statement that 'every finished project was unfinished at some point'?
-It emphasizes that the state of a project being unfinished is temporary and that the value of a project is not determined by its current state but by its potential for completion when necessary.
Why does the speaker suggest that it's not necessary to publish writing to gain value from it?
-The speaker believes that the act of writing itself clarifies thoughts and provides personal growth, regardless of whether the writing is published or not.
How does the speaker feel about the idea of finishing projects for the sake of finishing them?
-The speaker suggests that finishing a project just for the sake of completion without a clear purpose or need is a waste of time.
What is the speaker's perspective on the value of unfinished projects?
-The speaker views unfinished projects as valuable for learning about oneself, the process, and the material, and they can be completed when there is a demand or need for them.
Why does the speaker compare unfinished projects to unfinished papers from an English degree?
-The comparison is made to illustrate that only projects or papers that need to be finished are completed, and the rest remain unfinished until they are ready or required.
What is the practical advice the speaker gives for dealing with the feeling of having 'finished zero' projects?
-The speaker advises to not be hard on oneself for not having finished any projects yet, as everything is unfinished until it is completed, and the potential for completion exists in the future.
Outlines
📚 Starting with the First Step
The speaker emphasizes the importance of starting any task, no matter how daunting, by focusing on the first step. They use the metaphor of reading a 500-page book, suggesting that one should ignore the rest of the pages and concentrate on page one. The speaker argues that the feeling of being overwhelmed comes from focusing on the end goal rather than the present task. They share their personal experience of having many unfinished projects, which they view as a strength because it means they are always prepared with ideas. The speaker encourages the audience to start projects and finish the ones that are valuable, suggesting that the act of starting is more important than the fear of not finishing.
📝 The Value of Unfinished Work
The speaker discusses the misconception that unfinished projects are without value. They share their personal journey of writing extensively without publishing, which they later found to be a valuable resource for their thoughts and ideas. The speaker argues that the process of writing, even if not published, clarifies thoughts and contributes to personal growth. They also challenge the idea that one must finish a project for it to have worth, suggesting that projects should be completed when there is a demand or need for them. The speaker encourages the audience to view their unfinished work as a potential asset, ready to be utilized when the right opportunity arises.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Overwhelming
💡Present
💡Motivation
💡Vata
💡Ideation
💡Karma
💡Clarification
💡Unfinished Projects
💡Value
💡Publishing
💡Education Rant
Highlights
Starting a large project can be overwhelming, but the key is to focus on the first page and ignore the rest until you're ready.
The feeling of being overwhelmed often comes from focusing on the end goal rather than the present task.
It's not about the number of pages or projects; it's about taking the first step and starting.
The speaker shares their personal experience of having many unfinished projects, but the value lies in the potential they hold.
Embrace the idea that it's okay to have unfinished projects; they can be a source of creativity and innovation.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of finishing projects that are valuable and have a purpose.
Having a backlog of unfinished projects can be beneficial as they may be completed when needed for a specific purpose.
The speaker discusses the idea that not all projects need to be finished for the sake of completion; they should have a clear purpose.
The realization that writing provides value even if it's not published, as it clarifies thoughts and ideas.
The speaker shares their own journey of writing extensively without immediate publication, which later became valuable.
The importance of not beating oneself up for unfinished projects, as they can be completed at any time in the future.
The concept that everything is unfinished until it's finished, and the pressure to complete should come from necessity, not just for the sake of it.
The speaker's experience of having an unfinished project for 16 years that eventually became a valuable resource.
The idea that unfinished projects can teach us about ourselves, the process, and the material, making them valuable in their own right.
The speaker's suggestion that one should not feel pressured to finish projects just for the sake of finishing them.
The practical approach to only finish projects that are needed or have a clear demand, which adds value to the completion.
The speaker's collection of notebooks as a testament to their creative process and the potential within their unfinished ideas.
Transcripts
okay so how do i start reading page one
of a 500 page book it's overwhelming
you're right so the way that you start
reading page one
is by ignoring pages two through five
hundred whether it's a 500
page book or a two-page book you gotta
read page one
doesn't matter 500 pages 200 pages
thousand pages
like you can't read it doesn't matter
the action is the same
the overwhelming part comes from the
goal
this is why we're telling you all live
in the present
because as long as you're living in the
future as long as you're thinking about
your goal like when we talk about
motivation
i don't talk about goals why do you guys
think i don't talk about goals
goals make things harder sometimes okay
here's another one but what if it feels
bad if i leave 10 projects unfinished
then it feels bad okay so let me explain
something to you guys
this is my notebook just one
there are lots of ideas in here okay
this is vata so there's a lot of stuff
in here this is filled with random crap
this one is let me just make sure it's
okay this is a random to-do list
okay and on the next page here's my
education rant
so i this is something i want y'all to
understand so as being a vata
nine out of my ten projects are
unfinished so what
it's all good one out of ten is finished
seems to be working so far let's focus
on finishing the good ones this is where
people say but what about
these other nine and it's like where do
y'all think all this crap comes from
so i had like like i've had so many
projects that are half complete
and when the community needs something
i'm like halfway done it's great
i have all these projects and they're
halfway done
and i don't finish them until someone
shows up
and is like hey can you do this thing
and that's like you know what
actually i can it's like like we earlier
today we're
joking about you know group coaching for
authors who haven't finished books
but there are there are notes in that
about my notebook
about the creative like burden right
like we have notes like if we wanted to
do that we could
so this is the strength of avata it's
like you have nine out of ten projects
that are incomplete sure great fine
complete one
and then be prepared for the other nine
because they could come in handy it's
crazy ideate that's what vatas are good
at
and the other thing is if it feels bad
it feels bad like that's okay
like does it feel okay to finish one
instead of zero
you still feel good about that yeah so
just
start projects i'd say finish some of
them you know
but like garbage will help you with that
karma helped me a ton that was the big
thing is like now it's like
we've got stuff going on
okay so you guys you guys think you can
outdo dr k
how about if you finish zero so
i'm trying to figure out how to say this
every finished
project that i have completed
was unfinished at some point
right you guys get that i know it sounds
kind of weird
but like if you finished zero you just
haven't finished them yet
right like you just haven't finished it
yet
so like so what so i'll
i'll explain something so like the the
dr k's guide to meditation
i started writing in 2005.
i started writing in 2005 and it was
unfinished
for 16 years
and now it is done
so like was that bad that it was
unfinished in the decade in hindsight
absolutely not
i am so glad that i worked on that crap
for a decade
and then left it in a drawer because
when someone
sits down and and asks me in four weeks
to write two two or three feature length
films about meditation
that ends up being 65 000 words it's
ready
so for this something else to just to
share about myself
i started writing all kinds of random
crap at the age of 21 that never turned
into anything for like over a decade
and now like now it's like i'm just
finishing one thing at a time
so i know it sounds weird but how about
if you finish zero
if you haven't finished zero you don't
know if you've finished zero
you could finish half of them you just
don't know yet
so thus far you've finished zero so what
you could finish it tomorrow you could
finish it a year from now you could
finish it five years from now you never
know
right it's weird so be careful because
when your mind tells you you've finished
zero well like obviously like everything
is unfinished
until it's finished and then you beat
yourself up for not having finished any
projects it's like
that doesn't you could finish it later
everything is unfinished until it's
finished it sounds so stupid
and simple right and then like the other
big thing that that people seem to the
other big realization i had is that
you don't need to publish to get value
out of writing that was another huge
revelation that i had i wrote all this
stuff and i thought
oh my god this is unpublished like i
never turned it into anything but like
where do you guys think these answers
are coming from like when i
answer a question like where do you
think it's coming from it's coming from
my head how'd it get into my head it got
into my head by writing
so writing for me is the clarification
of my thoughts which then are like
accessible so like people talk about
unfinished projects and they value
unfinished projects over finished
projects but in my experience
there's so much to be gained from
unfinished projects
you learn so much you learn about
yourself you learn about the process you
learn about the material
and if something comes along that
demands that it be finished it will be
finished
because the other thing i want you all
to think about is when you have an
unfinished project
like it's just you finishing it for the
sake of finishing it that's a waste of
your time
it needs to be finished when someone
needs it for something
now if you're not finishing things that
people are depending on that are
important that's a different story
but i would venture that for most people
their unfinished projects
are like existing in a vacuum and you're
just placing this arbitrary label on
finishing it
for the sake of finishing it because
that's better than not finishing it
even though it may not have value in the
world you know why don't you have
unfinished papers when you graduate with
an english degree
it's because you finished all the papers
that needed to be finished
and all the half written poetry crap
that you didn't finish isn't ready to be
finished yet
okay change my mind don't coach george
how many notebooks do you have good go
you see that pile over there
that's my notebooks just in this
iteration that's
maybe 20 to 25 of them
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