Finishing Things - ratfactor
This was originally supposed to be a pretty short note. But it turned out I had<br>a bunch of related thoughts all tangled up. And once I started to tease them<br>apart, it became something much longer. This could have been half a dozen<br>separate Cards. (As a matter of fact, some new cards did arise.)
The irony is not lost on me the way this "short note" ended up exemplifying<br>some of the very challenges it’s about: It ballooned in scope; I began to<br>doubt the value of the whole thing; It was hard to finish it.
What follows is a bracingly honest assessment of how I do (and don’t) sometimes<br>finish projects.
The folly of big time-based plans (what isn’t working)
First, the good news:
It used to be, not that long ago in my memory, that I hardly ever finished<br>personal projects. I started stuff and would work on them like the blazes<br>until something stopped me and then that was it. One shot each.
That finally changed somewhere over the last ten years and now I finish some of<br>the things I start. Being able to say that is awesome and I earned it because<br>it wasn’t an easy road getting here.
Now the "bad" news:
High on the success of actually finishing personal projects for a<br>while, I started to think bigger. Big, foolish plans.
I started making year-long declarations. "Resolutions," if you will.<br>Mostly in private, but here’s some public ones:
The Year of the Microcontroller (2023)
The Year of Try It (plans for 2024)
Those didn’t go very well. Or, at least, they didn’t go like I’d planned.
The truth is, I’ve been going through some tough things and they started around<br>that time. Most of it is big emotional toll stuff. You know, the kind of stuff<br>everyone generally agrees is painful and hard. Some of it is just hard for<br>specifically me. But I won’t be writing about any of these things on this<br>page, so don’t bother looking for clues. The point is, I picked a heck of a<br>time to start making plans.
If that weren’t enough, external factors have even dictated the order in<br>which I’ve had to tackle my personal projects.<br>For example, The Microslop takeover of GitHub caused me to<br>replace it with a small Ruby script<br>for project hosting.<br>Likewise, I had to accelerate my OpenBSD<br>adventures out of necessity on no less than<br>two<br>occasions.<br>In both cases, I already I wanted to do those projects, but I had planned to do<br>them much later. Not a big deal in the long run, but, you know,<br>irritating. Not to mention devastating for my plans.
And all of that is okay. That’s why I put the quotes around "bad" news.
Hey, I know where I stand in the larger world. How many people on Earth are<br>in a position to pursue personal goals at all? I am grateful for what I have<br>and I do not go around the house wallowing in self pity all the time. (Just<br>some of the time.)
The point is, trying to plan out all the fun/enriching stuff I<br>want to do isn’t doing me any good. It’s not for lack of trying that it’s not<br>working. It’s just literally not possible to make those kinds of plans right now.<br>So I’m going to try to stop doing that. No more making big plans. No more, "This is<br>the year I do XYZ…"
The joy of the stack (what is working)
Here is my project stack:
I originally wrote about the concept here:<br>The Project Stack!<br>and here:<br>My "Project Stack" Display.
The way it works is simple:
First, when I get a new To-Do or idea for a little project, I write it on a<br>mini Post-It note, open up the display, and stick the note somewhere in the<br>stack.
Sometimes I stick the new thing near the bottom. I want to do that project<br>eventually, but not yet. But there’s a reason I’ve got a stack: The new<br>thing goes on or near the top more often than not.
Confession: If I’ve got a real quick thing, or at least something I think<br>will be real quick, I sometimes just stick it right on top of the display.
Then, when I get back to my desk and I need a reminder of what I’m doing,<br>there’s just one item staring back at me, so I work on it. Amazing, right? I<br>can hardly believe it either.
This system works for me because:
The top item is the only thing I’m working on.
The other things are out of sight, but I know they are there, not forgotten.
I trust my past self to have chosen the correct order in which to do the items.
The display adds enough friction that adding stuff is an intentional act.
There’s a bit of ceremony to adding and removing which helps me feel like I have a bigger plan at work.
The reason I landed on the FIFO ("First In, First Out") stack, and not just a<br>list, is that projects tend to beget other little projects. Little side quests<br>that need to be completed first. Have you ever noticed that?
Like, I’ll get started creating a program and then realize I need to create another little<br>helper program to help me out with it. And that works really well, so I ought to<br>create a little web page for the helper program and whatever I learned because<br>Web Page or It Didn’t Happen! and<br>Sharing is caring.<br>(For a good example of this,...