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That is the complete opposite of my philosophy, which mainly involves percolation, procrastination, and multi-tasking. I should abandon my idea to build a theremin because it's been percolating for 3 years? Never!
Yeah, let me get right on that with my serious procrastination on making charts for the expanded work stats. (I've got the data tables done, I just hate trying to explain to Excel how I want it to make pretty charts.)
I have a problem with a lack of doneness - I start lots of things then get distracted by something shiny and never get around to finishing it. Sometimes I even
w/r/t dg's comment: One of my favorite Callahan cartoons, which I can't find online, shows a city street corner. There is a donation can and a cardboard sign leaning against the wall, and a marker has been dropped near the sign. The sign says HELP ME I HAVE AD....... [with a scrawling line leading away from the final, uncompleted "D"].
start thinking about something, then get distracted by something else, but I later come back to my original train of thought and continue on as if nothing has happened.
I never realized that I belong to the Cult of Done. I do, though, and I fall under that zealot schism of 'perfectly Done, or no sleep for you tonight'.
In order to get everything "done" I would have to spend the rest of my life under a rock. Friend needs to go to drugstore. Drugstore is next to knitting store. We pass by knitting store. OMG I HAVE to have that knitting pattern and yarn. HAVE to. Another project added to the pile, next to the 2 other sweater patterns I haven't started yet.
"Done" is illusory. Whether something is "done" is out of my control.
Countless times, I have worked hard on something, and come to a point that this or that was "done" or "finished", only to have that issue come back and stick to me like a Post-it Note from Hell.
I really just find it useful at work. In my personal life I don't see much use for this. But in a multitasking work existence with multiple projects that could all easily be overthought and eat up too much time, this kind of thinking really has a place for me.
I hope what I wrote wasn't taken as criticism (because it's pretty close to criticism, and almost comes off as back-handed self-praise, the way chronic procrastinators like me tend to boast about how long we can put things off and how quickly we can do them). I really do need a Philosophy of Done in my professional life, but the whole idea of getting A System seems like it requires the discipline before I can get The Discipline, if you know what I mean.
You probably already know about the kits (here are a couple plasticones), right, muddgirl? I daydream about buying an Etherwave sometimes myself.
As usual with kits, you're trading money for time. And the finished product won't impress super-nerds, although they it will probably impress everybody else.
What's up with No. 7 anyway? "Once you're done, you can throw it away"?? Seems that negates the purpose of the entire rest of the list and hints that people are nothing but beavers or ants blindly working on projects for the sheer sake of working on projects...
OK, maybe it means, "Once you're done you can throw it away if it didn't turn out the way you wanted."
In that case, am I the only dummy who didn't get that?