“Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever.” The Tao Te Ching
1: Who doesn’t love a new beginning?
New projects. New things. New relationships.
“Because the moment of starting belongs to the world of limitlessness: For as long as we haven’t done any work on a project, it’s still possible to believe that the end result might match the ideal in our minds,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals.
We can “luxuriate in the feeling of pure potential,” Oliver writes. “It’s like opening the curtains, one weekend morning in childhood, to find the streets and gardens blanketed in virgin snow.”
Finishing things, on the other hand, can feel heavy. Because doing so entails “slogging our way through the messy, imperfect reality of what the project actually becomes,” he observes.
Social psychologists suggest that these feelings result from “the way we conceive of objects and events as if from different mental altitudes,” Oliver notes.
One classic example? Next summer’s vacation.
We begin by considering “how we’d like to spend ours next year, and we’re likely to picture it, figuratively speaking, from 30,000 feet,” he writes: “We might see ourselves going to the beach, or hiking in the mountains, or relaxing as a family.”
But as next summer approaches, we “descend a few thousand feet,” Oliver says, “and start focusing in on details: which beach, which mountain trails, which restaurants to eat at, and so forth.”
It’s similar when we start a significant project. “We see it in outline, smooth if a little blurry.” he notes, “It’s only as we dig in that we begin to encounter the flaws, the compromises, and the grunt-work involved.”
At which point, we assume (wrongly) that it’s time to move on to a new undertaking, which might be free of such imperfections.
“Really, of course, what makes the new endeavor more appealing is just that we’re seeing it at a mental distance,” he explains. “We fail to realize, in the words of the psychology writer Jude King, that ‘every worthwhile goal is supposed to feel hard, unglamorous, unsexy,’ at least for some of the time we’re actually putting in the work.”
2: About starting new things, Oliver says: “And yet, in reality, repeatedly starting but rarely finishing things, or finishing them only under duress, is a recipe for misery.”
Why? Because we “get fewer worthwhile things done,” he writes, “not least because, whenever we hit a difficult patch in whatever we’re doing, there are several other projects to which we can scurry off to instead.”
The result: We “never accumulate a track record of accomplishments in which to take pride and we never benefit from the feedback we’d have received had we shared our work with others,” Oliver notes. “We become filled with self-loathing, and overwhelmed by the number of unfinished items on our plate.”
Ouch.
The reason for these feelings, Oliver believes, is that we think that completing something will drain us of all our energy.
We “get tired just thinking about it,” author Steve Chandler observes. We don’t see ‘that leaving things unfinished is what’s causing the low levels of energy.”
Steve suggests “spending one day robotically completing as much unfinished business as we can: ‘Notice at the end of that day how much energy we’ve got. We’ll be amazed,'” he predicts.
There is a trick to finishing things, Oliver explains. When everything seems overwhelming, we simply need to redefine “what counts as finished. Instead of viewing the completion of a project as something that happens only occasionally, after days or weeks of work, think of our days as consisting in the sequential completion of a series of small ‘deliverables.'”
This low-drama approach reframes finishing things as utterly routine. And that’s the point. Because when we finish something, we tap into a mysterious energy: “Contemplating the matter in advance, we’d assume that seeing a project through to the end might leave us feeling depleted, especially if it’s one that’s been hanging around for a while,” Oliver observes. “Yet the truth is that completion replenishes energy, rather than using it up.
“So getting into the habit of finishing what we start,” he writes, “creates fuel for further meaningful productivity.”
3: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.
At the end of each week, we are exploring some of the life lessons Oliver shares in his wonderful book Meditations for Mortals.
Every time we sit down to work, Oliver suggests we be intentional about clarifying “some outcome we could attain in a single sitting—in the next few minutes, say, or over an hour or two at most.
“Then work until we reach it,” he writes. “If we need to send a difficult email, write the email and send it, rather than beginning it then letting it fester in our drafts.
“For bigger projects, break off a piece: finish the research for the first section of the report; finalize the paint colors for the living room; select a workout plan and schedule our first session at the gym.
“Do it and be done with it. Put it on your done list, if we like. Then move on.”
In time, finishing things is no longer a stress-filled event requiring a massive amount of effort and energy.
Instead, our days “involve a low-key process of moving small, clearly defined packages of work across our desk and out the door,” Oliver writes.
The best part?
“Each ending,” he predicts, “provides an energy-boost for the next. . . We’re no longer fighting the current, but letting it carry us forward. Life is less effort that way.”
More next week!
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Reflection: Am I habitually leaving projects unfinished, and how might my energy and focus change if I committed to completing small tasks more consistently?
Action: Identify one lingering task today and see it through to completion, then notice the surge of energy and clarity that comes with crossing it off my list.
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