Whenever I get stuck on a big project, I feel an irresistible pull to start something new. When I give in, I eventually find out that the new project has stages where I want to quit too. So the cycle continues and I don’t finish anything.
Throughout the whole journey of creating the book, I always had another project to run to. One of them is CraftSpan, a work tracker app for Windows. I started it around the same time I was developing the outline for the book. Whenever I hit a hard stage in the book (like outlining a new chapter), I switched to developing the app instead.
It seems harmless but what I was doing is splitting my attention. Sure that’s not the worst way to get distracted, I could be watching YouTube or playing games instead. But this kind of distraction is even more sneaky. No one has any doubts that doomscrolling is a distraction, but what about working on an ambitious project?
Identifying a distraction
For me, a distraction is anything that takes my attention away from my one thing. My one thing right now is the book, because it’s the highest impact thing I could be doing with my time. If I publish it, I could cover my near-term money needs and it would open the way to making other educational products.
Now let’s look at CraftSpan. No matter how much I tried to justify it, I couldn’t find a direct way it would bring me closer to my goals. At best it could help bring attention to my other products, but I don’t have any products yet!
I continued developing it regardless, it was a perfect way for me to feel productive while avoiding the difficult work that actually matters.
Every project has difficulties
Every exciting project has hidden traps in it. You can’t see them from the outside, and they always end up being much worse than they seem. The grass is usually not greener on the other side.
The honeymoon phase of working on a project feels really good, you’re very excited and going through tasks effortlessly. Then you hit a stage where you don’t have much experience, so you learn to work through it too. Then the next stage requires even more knowledge you don’t have, and you realize that it’s just going to get more and more complicated from now on. That’s when the honeymoon phase ends.
The skill of breaking through those barriers is the thing that determines success.
Saying no to side projects
Every side project you have apart from the main one is another obstacle on the way to your one thing.
Next time you hit a difficult stage in your project and feel a pull to start something new because you got a great idea, write the idea down and go back to your project. You can look at your ideas once the project is done.
Last week I started finishing up everything that’s not the book. Today I published the beta version of CraftSpan. That’s at least some closure that I hope will let me focus back on my one thing. From now on it will only get bug fixes until the book is out.
