I never finish anything

On paper, every idea looks simple. But when I actually start doing it, it turns out I don’t have enough time, I lack the skills, or my drill has the wrong bit. I have to buy something extra, wait for a delivery. Then everyday life gets in the way and pushes the project to "later." And "later" never comes, because there’s already a new "now."

As a result, dozens of unfinished projects pile up around us. And even though we're usually talking about small details, one thing blocks me mentally: the setup cost.

If I have a big project, like a full weekend of DIY, bringing tools out of the garage, taping plastic sheets over everything, and cleaning up afterwards makes sense. But when I just need to finish a fifteen-minute fix, and the prep and cleanup will take an hour, I just can't be bothered.

Take a random example: it’s September. Last December, we got our kitchen renovated. Everything is ready and working… almost. Under the cabinets, we installed LED strips in aluminium profiles. But on a few of them, the diffusers keep falling off (cheap Chinese junk). I have the glue, but the lights work, so the priority to fix it is basically zero.

I could count examples like this on both hands. On the floor, you can see the edge of the tiles and dried adhesive, because "one day we’ll redo the living room floor anyway." I started renovating the hallway in the spring, and in September it’s still bare plaster. In my home office, I have a white plaster patch on a black wall because I don't feel like getting a roller out just to paint one small spot.

On my hard drives, gigabytes of holiday photos and videos are waiting to be edited, some going back to... 2021. In my cabinet, there’s a pile of video gear: a camera, a drone, a gimbal, microphones, lights, because, obviously, one day "I’ll start a video production company." Or maybe I’ll write a book, or help my wife with her art business, or open a coffee shop.

Too many ideas at once. When everything is important, nothing really is.

For years, I tried to fix this. I read productivity books, tried building "atomic habits," and listened to YouTube gurus who tell you that to be successful, you must wake up at 5 AM, take ice-cold showers, meditate, run 10k, and catch the morning sunlight. Great advice, except I live in Northern England, where there's no sun for nine months of the year, and my kids need breakfast before school.

Add a full-time job, a house, a mortgage, two kids, and daily life to that, and it just doesn't add up. At 7:30 PM, I’m getting back with my younger son from his football training. By 10:00 PM, I need to be in bed if I want seven hours of sleep. Those tips are written by people who live in a bubble with zero real responsibilities.

I used to beat myself up about this, until I looked at what I do for a living.

By day, I work as a Head of Design at a bank, managing lots of projects at the same time. A while ago, I wrote an article about two types of designers: Farmers and Hunters [1]. A Farmer likes working on an existing product. You give them a problem, and they’ll spend weeks tweaking, optimising, and improving it. A Hunter needs a blank canvas. You give them an open problem, and they go hunting, fuelled by dopamine from the discovery phase.

I am 100% a Hunter.

At work, I have the most energy right at the start, when everything is fresh and nothing is figured out yet. But when a project enters the slow, painful phase of polishing and documentation, like when I had to document our design system, my attention drifts immediately. In most companies, I got bored after three years. I’ve been at Tandem for five years now only because every twelve months, the bank throws brand new, wild challenges at me.

And then it hit me.

I do the exact same thing at home. My goals fail whenever I try to be a Farmer.

Back in February, I wrote my productivity manifesto for this year. Among other things, I planned to build a repertoire of ten signature dishes (even though I can't cook to save my life) and lose seven kilos while training for a half marathon.

The long-term cooking plan died a natural death after two weeks. But recently, I saw a Gozney pizza oven online. Beautiful piece of kit. My inner Hunter immediately wanted it in my garden. But I set a rule for myself: I won't spend £350 on a “toy’ until I learn how to make great dough in a regular kitchen oven. It was a short, specific challenge with a clear reward at the end. The result? Every week I make dough, experiment, and have a great time doing it. I still haven't bought the oven, but I'm hitting the goal.

Same thing with running. I didn't lose the seven kilos. But I ran a half marathon. I didn't build any "running habit." I was already running 10–15k regularly and thought: "well, I'm not that far off 21k, let's turn this into a quick summer challenge." I signed up, ran it, ticked it off.

The holiday photo book? Exactly the same pattern. I knew that if I didn’t sit down with the photos from Croatia within two weeks of getting back, while the trip was still fresh in my mind, they’d end up on the hard drive graveyard next to the 2021 files. I sat down, pushed through a short sprint, and got it done.

My brain doesn't do marathons. My brain only works in sprints.

That's why I stopped seeing my unfinished projects as personal failures or a lack of discipline.

When the sun suddenly comes out after weeks of gloomy English weather, and I have to choose between spending Saturday in dust plastering the hallway or spending the day with my family by the lake, I pick the lake. And I don’t see it as procrastination anymore. It’s a conscious choice of a Hunter who knows that DIY can wait for a rainy September, but rare English sunshine waits for no one.

I will finish the hallway eventually. The kids are back in school, the weather has turned, so the natural time for DIY is back. I’ll do it just like the kitchen renovation, where the motivation was a team of fitters booked for a specific day in November and the goal to finish before Christmas. I’ll give myself a hard, external deadline that forces me into one strong sprint.

I’ve stopped pretending to be a Farmer in my own life. I’m not going to build perfect morning routines or try to be a productivity guru. I accept my chaos, my delays, and my sprints. Maybe white patches will stay on my walls for a while, and old videos will sit on my hard drives. I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t finish every single idea that pops into my head. But the ones that genuinely matter to me, I'll get them done in my own time, in another sprint. My way.