Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to try a finishing blitz. Spend a day completing all the tasks you can, even if they are done imperfectly, and let that sense of accomplishment fuel you for even more in the future. Today's tip, like another this week, comes from Oliver Berkman's book Meditations for Mortals. One of Berkman's meditations focuses on finishing things and what
he calls the magic of completion. Berkman points out that completing a task energizes you for future tasks. You have probably had this experience. After completing an important task, you feel ready to conquer the world, or at least ready to knock out another important task. Rather than being depleted by what you have done, you are fired up for the next thing. But if finishing feels so good, why do we leave so many things hanging? Why is procrastination
so tempting? Why do we spend time deleting emails even if we know there will always be emails instead of making progress. Berkman points out that perfectionists tend to like starting things more than finishing them. At the beginning of a project, you can still imagine finishing it perfectly, as Berkman writes, for as long as you haven't done any work on a project, it's still possible to believe that the end result might match the ideal in your mind.
But the problem is that if you don't finish things, the only place the result exists is in your mind. The result may be perfect, but it's not real. You don't have any accomplishments to celebrate, you can't get feedback or other's ideas about the work you've done, and you don't get the energy boost of completion. You are much better off achieving an imperfect result then having the perfect project existing only in your head. Berkman cites advice from
Steve Chandler, the author of the book Time Warrior. Chandler advises spending a day finishing as much unfinished business as he calls it as you can, and then noticing how much energy you have. You'll be amazed. He says, getting stuff done doesn't wear us out. It's leaving things undone
that tends to sap our energy. For projects that are too big to complete in one setting, Berkman advises defining your next deliverable, as he puts it, clarify some outcome you could attain in a single setting, he suggests, and then work until you reach it. He gives the examples of finishing the research for a single section of a report, picking the paint color for one room, and choosing a
workout plan and scheduling your first GEM session. Obviously, writing a full research report or redecorating your entire house and getting fit are more than you can do in one setting, but you can get some of the benefits of completion by defining the next step toward the goal and then accomplishing that step. So if you feel like you are in the messy and unmotivated middle of a lot of projects, having a one day finishing blitz might be just what
you need. You'll get a lot done, which will give you a sense of accomplishment, Plus you'll get an energy boost to fuel you for the next thing. If you try finishing blitz, I'd love to hear about it. You can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listen, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
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