You start a project, make some headway, then life intervenes and you have to stop working on it. Time goes on, you start another project, life intervenes, it’s also goes on the back burner. You end up with many unfinished projects on a list somewhere. Stress levels rise when you look at the list as you know you’re unlikely to find the time to finish all these projects off.

An hour or so going through this list, looking at each project, and deciding if you want to finish it is time well spent. If you’re not going to finish it then remove it from your list, archive anything you created, and write down some quick notes on anything you learned from it.

You should aim to cancel these projects by default. Be ruthless! Unless there is a really, really good reason to keep it just get it off your list. If you’re going to keep it around make sure you know what done looks like. Be realistic about the time you’re going to have available to finish the project.

(This email is mainly advice for myself as I looked through my list of projects this morning…)