On Finishing

Confessions of a self-described starter

ENTP. According to Myers and Briggs I’m supposed to be creative, compelling, visonary. All the good stuff people look for in a leader. But there is one thing that I have to fight for every day. One thing that does not come naturally to me, but is required if you’re going to have an impact in the real world: the ability to finish.

If I’m not very careful, I can have a list of 10 things to do, spend all day running and making progress, but never finishing a single one. Never getting to the point of “good enough”. Never shipping. I slip into the black hole of perpetual improvement.

“But I made some good progress today,” I’ll say to myself. “I mean, look how hard I worked today!”

Let’s set one thing straight: Working hard is not enough.

Working hard might be enough for grade school, an entry level retail job or some praise from your mother, but it doesn’t cut it in the real world. The real world doesn’t care how hard it was, how long it took, or how you feel about what you’ve been working on.

The world cares about the product. What you produce. The theoretical delivered in tangible form. You have to make them care about the rest: the effort, the time, the feeling by communicating through the product.

Want them to see your effort? Show progress by delivering. Want them to see how long this took you? Give them snapshots of the progression by pushing updates. Want them to share in your accomplishment or love the work like you do? Win them over by finishing.

Don’t worry that it’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. Show regular improvement and the people who follow you will grow to love the product like you do. They’ll be more invested in the process and more excited about the outcome.

Ideas may be genius, but execution is proof.