Have you ever been out walking, suddenly spotted a landmark and thought “Great, I’m nearly there!”, only to find that an hour later you’re still walking towards it?
Well the same can be said for finishing a task.
I like to consider myself a successful person; and because that’s how I choose to define myself I recognise that, in order to make that my reality, I have to adopt the habits of a successful person.
One of those habits is “Successful people do the things that need to be done – and here’s the important bit – even when they don’t feel like it.”
I’m also practising the important discipline of finishing a task completely before moving on to the next one.
Tonight I came in and decided to tidy the kitchen, even though I didn’t feel like it; and by 8:22pm I felt I had done enough to leave the rest. But then my resolve kicked in and I said to myself “You know what, I’m going to spend 10 more minutes on this and get the kitchen completely finished.”
FORTY MINUTES LATER, I finished!
Now had I left that until tomorrow, that would have been another 40 minutes out of my day, PLUS any cleaning and tidying from tomorrow’s kitchen activities.
So, the main lesson here is not to stop when you think you’ve nearly finished a task, because:
- You may be further from finishing than you think, and
- Finishing a task gives you closure, gets it out of your head and releases motivational energy.