Ping Pong

I’m wondering if you can relate to this. . . .

Despite what I would consider a better than normal aptitude for focus and getting things done, I have developed a bad habit that I need to break. 

I have a tendency to get about 95% done with something (a task or project) and then shut it down for the time being, wrap it up, save it and leave the last 5% to be completed at a later time or date. 

Having self-diagnosed, I believe there are a couple of reasons I do that. First off, I’ve usually been working on that particular thing for quite a while and I’m ready to just be done with it.  Second, I succumb to a false sense of next task importance.  I perceive starting the next task to be more important than seeing the current one to the point of completion.  Third, there is a natural human inclination to actually completing anything creative or worthwhile.  If you think otherwise, you are fooling yourself.

So what happens?  I/we get about 90-95% done and leave the rest for later.  Later either turns into  ‘Never’ or at best a perpetual nagging reminder that that task is still incomplete and an inability to fully engage in the next one.  This is a nasty habit that I need to break. 

I always joke with my wife telling her that she allows what I would consider to be insignificant things weigh on her consciousness.  For instance, the fact that she has a bag full of plastic bags in the backseat of her car that need to be dropped off at the grocery store for recycling bothers her to no end.  Or she has a return that she’s been meaning to make for weeks and the timing is never right.

I tell her that I imagine these little things as a bunch of ping pong balls bouncing around in her head.  Though I tease, I do understand (my cover is blown).  I play that game too on a different level. 

Sadly, when we allow ourselves to get 90-95% of the way through something and rationalize a reason to finish it later, we just keep adding more and more ping pong balls into the mix.  This brings more chaos and frustration.  We cheat ourselves of the satisfaction and clarity that comes from the actual completion of a project or a task.

So as I sit here right now and realize that I’m about to close up and save a project of mine about 97% complete and leave it for “later,” I’m going to open that document up and finish it because I know that is one less ping pong ball bouncing around in my head for the rest of the day or week.

Can you relate?