10 Tips for When You Just Can’t Focus Long Enough to Finish

How to be endlessly curious and still get things done

Starting projects, for me, is not the problem. It’s been this way all my life. I start off with a burst of energy and enthusiasm about something and then the momentum goes, and something else catches my attention. My mother was the same. I have childhood memories of half-upholstered velvet armchairs that sat forlornly in the dining room and confronted us every mealtime, they could have been beautiful but they never reached their full potential. She never got around to finishing them.

I felt compelled to write about this after I found myself struggling to write my next article on Medium, having written my first few in a burst of excited energy. How on earth can I just knuckle down and get stuff done?

1. Being a great starter can be a good thing.

An events company I worked for knew how to bring out the best in their employees. They produced amazingly complex corporate events and the guy who thought them up was a creative genius. His ideas were off the wall and brilliant. He got everyone on board to his idea, he got them to begin creating his vision and then he stepped away. While he remained involved and it was his baby, it took a team of finishers to bring the idea to life. He was already working on his next project.

As a freelance working alone, I don’t have a team of finishers supporting me. I have to be both the starter and the finisher. I know I am not alone with this habit for starting but not finishing. Surely this is not so bad. Much worse, surely, is never to start, not to try. I always worried, however, about being a ‘jack-of-all-trades, master of none’, and there are many articles written on how one can change, how to focus, how to be less distracted. Not finishing stuff is not seen so favourably in our culture. It is telling that googling ‘famous people who are starters not finishers’ and similar phrases brings up links related to depression, celebrities with defects, famous people who failed.

2. Intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects?

In my life so far, I have been a journalist, dancer, secretary, traveller, tour leader, English teacher, translator and corporate researcher. Sometimes more than one at a time. Right now, I am halfway through studying Dutch in a self-study book, completing a 2,500 piece jigsaw, finally just completed my overdue tax return, in an ongoing project to clear out my closet, have a bunch of classes to prepare for teaching, in the middle of a translation, and have three half-written articles for Medium I fear may never see the light of day.

One thing at a time, I tell myself, one thing at a time. Will I ever learn?

I had a good friend, similar to me in this way, and we researched our collective problem and discovered something wonderful. People like us are actually ‘scanners’, a term first coined by US career coach and author of many books on goal achievement, Barbara Sher. People who ‘scan’ look for opportunities all the time, seek new experiences, job roles, projects and have intense curiosity about numerous unrelated topics.

“To Scanners the world is like a big candy store full of fascinating opportunities, and all they want is to reach out and stuff their pockets.” Author and coach Barbara Sher

Scanners are sometimes confused with people who are afraid to chase their true dreams, or are depressed, or sufferers of ADHS (attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome). However, ADHS sufferers cannot focus on any one thing while they do it, while scanners can, but only for so long. There is too much else out there of interest!

3. Embrace your scanner personality

We are in good company. When I google ‘famous people who are scanners’, the results change. I find Leonardo da Vinci (artist, inventor, the original Renaissance Man), philosopher Aristotle, entrepreneur Richard Branson (founder of the Virgin Group, which has over 400 companies) and Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Emilie Wapnick, whose TED talk on scanners, or ‘multipotentialites’, has been viewed 6 million times, believes:

“Multipotentialites thrive on learning, exploring, and mastering new skills. We are excellent at bringing disparate ideas together in creative ways. This makes us incredible innovators and problem solvers.” Emilie Wapnick, author and founder of Puttylike.com

Jim Woods wrote about his own discovery of the word ‘multipotentialite’ in the Post Grad Survival Guide, another example of this self-discovery making all the difference. https://readmedium.com/building-a-business-or-pursuing-a-dream-this-one-word-changes-everything-d1c249816fb2

4. You can be a great finisher. How do YOU define finish?

Before starting a project, we need to decide what we want to get from it, and then measure success by our own parameters. A specialist personality may see the concept of finishing in a very different light. When I take on a new project because it interests me, I am not necessarily interested in taking it to its full conclusion. I want to dabble, free up my mind, expand my horizons.

I borrowed a guitar once and spent a few weeks taking guitar lessons and learning how to accompany myself in my singing. I’m no great guitarist but I had fun learning the basic chords and being able to strum some notes. That’s enough for me. Is that an unfinished project? No. I wanted to get familiar with the guitar, play a basic song or two and now I can. I gave the guitar back and honestly haven’t picked one up since. And that’s OK. I did what I set out to achieve. That project is FINISHED.

5. Stay focused on the goal

Sometimes of course, life requires us to finish stuff. In our jobs, in our home lives, leaving everything ‘unfinished’ in the traditional sense is just not practical. So even the scanners among us must learn the techniques for completing projects, every now and again.

Reading a piece by social psychologist and best-selling author Heidi Grant in the June 2011 Harvard Business Review, I learnt how people pursuing goals are affected differently by focusing either on how far they have already come or what is left to be accomplished. People routinely use both kinds of thinking to motivate themselves but studies by University of Chicago psychologists Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbac show that when we look at how far we’ve come, we tend to slack off. On the other hand….

When we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained, it’s heightened.

The brain recognises the discrepancy between where we are and where we want to be and reacts by focusing its attention, its resources on fixing the problem.

“Great Finishers force themselves to stay focused on the goal, and never congratulate themselves on a job half-done” Heidi Grant, Harvard Business Review June 2011

6. Say no to some things.

This may mean saying no to your inner voice tempting you to change project, or your partner suggesting a movie when you really need to finish what you are doing.

Billionaire Warren Buffett shares this mindset. He reportedly once said “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

7. Make lists

Richard Branson is a big note taker and list maker. He recommends making lists to keep you productive and focused on what you need to get done. It can be done for day-to-day or monthly goals.

“I have always lived my life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen.” Richard Branson, founder of Virgin

8. Keep a notebook for ideas.

Leonardo Da Vinci carried a notebook everywhere so that if a thought, observation, or passage caught him, he could write it down. He even hung one from his belt so he would have it wherever he went. Steve Jobs also needed to note down ideas wherever he could. His sister’s eulogy in 2011 mentioned how even in hospital, with pneumonia and intubated, unable to talk, he begged for a notepad and redesigned his rather ordinary hospital unit.

“It needed some routine and getting used to, but now I immediately write down anything that excites me. After I write it down, it’s easier to focus on other things again, knowing my idea will not be lost but conserved in my notebook. Whenever I feel the urge to engage in something new, I turn to my notebook and choose my next activity.” Barbara Scher

9. Once you write in your notepad, then you need to act.

Simply writing in a notepad doesn’t create change. Write down three things you need to do, just before going to sleep or first thing in the morning, then do the most important or urgent one first. Easier said than done, but the space freed up in your head makes it easier to move on to the next project.

So, if you are ready to act, bear the following in mind:

We aren’t all cut out to be great finishers, some people are too endlessly curious to always see things through. While it’s great to be a scanner if you know it and embrace it, sometimes we have to knuckle down and finish the job. Define your own ‘finish’, set goals you can realistically achieve, use the tried-and-tested techniques listed here to get over the finish line, and recognise your worth as a Renaissance person.

We get what we focus on. And what we lack in focus, we make up for in curiosity. The world needs people like us!

As Richard Branson famously likes to say…

10. Screw it, just do it.