I am a great one for starting new projects. I have many on the go at one time. This is all well and good, it gives me plenty to ‘dip into’, but as far as producing an end product (you know, something people will actually pay money for, something that will pay the bills), there I run into difficulties.

I am rapidly approaching the end of a major part of the book I am writing to accompany the on-line training course I published at the end of last year (for Subversion, for those interested) and I find myself searching for other things to do. Suddenly half a dozen other projects look more interesting. All the books that I have been researching for suddenly seem more important, more interesting. The information management system I have been mulling over for the past decade has once again reared its ugly and unproductive head. I know what I am doing. I am avoiding that final moment. The moment when a project is finished. When I finally close the book and say, “that’s it. That’s the finished product”.

I even know why I am doing this. I know that I am delaying the final delivery so that I do not have to commit. So that I do not have to make that declaration that this is the best I can produce. This, this product is what I am offering to the world.

The truth, I guess, is that I will never be happy that anything I do is “the best” I can do. I should simply admit that this project is the best I can achieve NOW, with the caveat that it will improve over time. I am no perfectionist (there’s no such standard), but I still harbour feelings of failure that I am not producing “the best” I can.

I think that the only practical course of action is to publish and be damned otherwise this could go on for ever and nothing would ever be achieved.

I have been very easily distracted today, and it is far from the first time this has happened. I know I should be concentrating. I know I should be finishing this project. I know I should be isolating myself from temptation and getting some productive work done. But there are too many shiny things to distract me.

Actually, there are no shiny things. Well, none that demand my attention. I have spent today doing a little work but constantly looking for things to distract me.

Update my iPhone applications. Check for updates on all the applications on my Mac. Read all the RSS feeds. Wonder whether I can set up a system using DevonThink Pro to filter my RSS feeds automatically, that would make reading my RSS feeds more efficient and free up more time for work – ha! See what I mean?

I did do some work, but not as much as I should. It is just so easy to distract myself with things that might be productive one day but right now are nothing more than a way to avoid the work I should be doing. Like writing this post…