There’s a very particular kind of energy that shows up at the beginning of something. You know the one. Slightly unhinged, blindly optimistic and off its face on dopamine! Convinced this idea is the idea.
You’ve had an idea and suddenly everything feels urgent, important and like this might actually be the ‘thing’ that changes EVERYTHING! You maybe even tell someone about it, which is always a risky move because now it feels real and you’ve essentially committed to becoming “a person who finishes things”.
And then… a few days later… it just quietly evaporates. No drama. No official announcement. You don’t sit down and go, “I am now abandoning this project.” It just becomes weirdly harder to return to. The excitement disappears, the urgency fades, and suddenly you’re left with… the actual work. Which feels a bit like turning up to a party and realising you’re committed to 400 different versions of small talk. Arghhhhhhh.
Starting and finishing are not the same skill (who knew!?)
We talk about productivity as if it’s one thing. You either get things done, or you don’t. As if there’s a magical group of people who are just “good at getting things done” and the rest of us are out here… vibing and starting seventeen things at once.
But starting something and finishing something are completely different processes. Starting is powered by novelty. It’s curiosity, possibility, and that lovely dopamine spike that comes with a new idea. It pulls you in. It does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Starting, in many ways, is the easy bit.
Finishing, on the other hand, is less sparkly. Because it relies on regulation and sustained attention. It demands that you keep going when something is no longer exciting and has become a series of boring fiddly steps that require you to stay engaged anyway. Think ‘trapped in a corner at a party answering “so what is it you do’ questions’ on repeat! This can feel like our brain has personally betrayed us. Because it’s not that we’ve lost interest for no reason, but the task itself has changed shape.
The novelty drop-of
The beginning of a project is all potential. You’re imagining what it could be. You’re connecting ideas. You’re sitting on your fancy office chair with a slightly evil look on your face stroking an unusually hairy cat. The world is your lobster!
Then you hit the middle. And the middle is where your dreams go to cry. It’s repetition. It’s decision fatigue. It’s working out things that are no longer interesting but still very much required if you’d like this project to ever see the light of day.
For brains that run on interest, that drop in stimulation can feel like you’ve been unplugged. Not because you don’t care anymore, but because the thing that was fuelling you at the start has left the building. Rude, really. And you’ve been left with a different kind of energy which stalls your momentum.
The “almost done” trap
You would think the closer you get to finishing something, the easier it would be to just… finish it. You’d be wrong. The ‘almost done’ trap is the ‘getting to work then remembering you left the iron on’ moment in the process. It’s feeling like you are so close to success, then realising you have to go back and clean something else up.
Because the last 10% is where things suddenly become serious. It’s the detail. The polishing. The “just one more tweak” energy. The part where your brain decides this is now incredibly important and must be done properly. You’ve been there, right? You skim the first paragraph of a final draft, decide it sucks, and want to rip the whole thing up and start again. Even when it really doesn’t!
The final stages tend to need more detail, more decision-making, which increases friction rather than reducing it. Slightly inconveniently — it’s the point where the thing becomes real.
Because once it’s finished, people can see it. Have opinions about it. Potentially misunderstand it. And now we’re in a whole different emotional landscape. So, what do we do? We hover. We tweak. We leave it at 92% complete like it’s in some kind of protective limbo. Because “almost done” feels safe. Finished feels exposed.
On a slightly random, but very relevant tangent, my personal brand website was meant to go live in August…..2025! (7 months ago, at the time of writing this!). I have prevaricated, tweaked, read and reread, loved it, hated it….and still not pushed the ‘get on with it’ button. I am stuck somewhere in the middle of “I just need to do it”, and “what if it isn’t good enough”. And the reality is that it is not that important that it needs to be taking up that much of my brain energy. But here I am anyway.
The quiet weight of unfinished things
Unfinished tasks don’t just sit there quietly like polite little items on a list. They lurk. They pace. They are the kid in the back of the car alternating “are we nearly there yet” with “can I have a wee”.
They pop into your head at inconvenient moments. They create that low-level background noise of “you should probably go back to that thing”, even when you’re trying to focus on something else.
Over time, that builds into a sort of mental clutter. A collection of open tabs that never quite close. And with that comes a bit of guilt, often a creeping frustration with yourself. It can start to feel like you’re constantly behind, even if you’re actually doing a lot. Which is a wildly unhelpful narrative, but unfortunately quite a convincing one when you’re surrounded by half-completed projects. This is where the narrative begins to form. When enough things remain unfinished, it’s easy to start telling yourself that you “never finish anything”. That belief isn’t accurate, but it can feel very real.
When it becomes a story about who you are
This is where it stops being about tasks and starts being about identity. “I’m just not consistent.” “I always lose interest.” “I never follow things through.”
And once you start telling yourself that, every unfinished project becomes proof. So now, finishing something isn’t just about completing the task. It’s about fixing something about yourself. It becomes tied to proving something about yourself, which makes the process feel heavier and more loaded than it needs to be.
Which is a lot of pressure to put on, say, editing a document or replying to an email. No wonder it feels hard, because that pressure reinforces the cycle, rather than breaking it!
The motivation cliff
I’ve said it before, but we’re taught to expect motivation to be steady, as if caring about something should automatically mean we keep showing up for it in the same way every day.Which sounds lovely. And also… not reality.
In fact I could pull together a panel of house plants that would attest to the idea that ‘caring’ was not enough for me to ensure they got watered! In fact, in the mid 80’s I even had a rabbit that broke free from her cage and ran in search of a more reliable carer (RIP Miffy). She eventually came home, with the realisation that braving the elements and wilderness was not a preferable alternative!
Motivation, especially for ND brains, tends to be more “peaks and troughs” than “gentle rolling hills”. It spikes. It disappears. It comes back at 1am with a brand new idea that is definitely more important than the thing you were doing before. Eg sleeping.
So, when motivation drops mid-project, it can feel like something’s gone wrong. But nothing’s gone wrong. You’ve just moved past the exciting part, to the less exciting bit. Unfortunately, your brain was not consulted about this transition.
Designing for completion (not just excitement)
If finishing relies on something different, then it makes sense that we need to support it differently. Relying on motivation alone will only take you so far, which is why structure becomes important.
Not rigid, life-sapping structure, but enough scaffolding to stop things drifting off into the void. Breaking projects into phases helps. Knowing what “done” actually looks like (before you start moving the goalposts halfway through) helps. External accountability can help, provided it doesn’t immediately trigger your nervous system into rebellion.
Also, a small but important lesson I keep relearning: not everything needs to be in version one. If I don’t separate “must have” from “nice to have”, everything becomes a “must have”, and suddenly I’m six hours deep adjusting something no one will ever notice.
And perhaps most importantly, removing perfection from the finish line.Because if “done” secretly means “flawless”, you will never be finished. You will simply be… circling. Waiting for perfection to show up with her perfect skin, and expensive handbag.
Redefining what “finished” means
There’s a lot of freedom in deciding that something can be complete without being perfect. Says the woman that’s still not fully taken that concept on board! Because perfection is a moving target. You can always tweak, adjust, improve. There is always one more thing you could do. Which is how things stay open indefinitely.
Sometimes, finishing something at 80% is infinitely more useful than leaving it unfinished because it never quite felt ready. Once something exists, you can improve it. Refine it. Build on it. But you can’t improve something that never makes it out of your head.
Allowing work to be “good enough” is not lowering your standards. It’s creating a sustainable way to actually complete things.
A quieter way to think about follow-through
Finishing isn’t about suddenly becoming more disciplined, more consistent, or more like those mythical people who seem to just calmly complete things without emotional drama. It’s about understanding how your brain works and building around that, rather than fighting it.
When you recognise that the drop in motivation is predictable, that the middle of a project is often the hardest part, and that the final stages carry more emotional weight than we expect, it becomes easier to respond with something other than frustration.
Because unfinished doesn’t mean incapable. It usually just means the system you were relying on stopped working halfway through. And if the only way something gets finished is by dragging yourself through it with stress, pressure, and a growing sense of “why am I like this”, then it’s not a system you can rely on long term.
A better goal? Finish things in a way that doesn’t make you hate the process… or yourself. Quietly. Imperfectly. Repeatedly. Because trust isn’t built on perfect starts — it’s built on things you actually finish.