3 tips for getting your creative work FINISHED!

Here’s three simple (read: simple to read, not necessarily simple to action) tips to actually finishing your next creative project.

1)Why do you want to do this now?

After 2 decades, years, months or even days, a hot, burning idea can either smoulder or be snuffed out. So why revive it now? Is it to impress somebody else? Are you sick of not finishing things? Have you had a major life event take place e.g. relationship change, someone close to you dying or becoming seriously ill, moving house or country, family getting bigger or children flying the coop? Grab a pen and paper or e-device and write down at least 20 reasons why you want to finish this project now.

2) Who is it for?

Now take a look at that list of 20 reasons (Yep, I know you made it!) and mark which ones are you for you or someone else.

This is a hard list because you might find those amazing reason aren’t really about you and your personal growth/blahblahblah but actually, what you think other people expect of you. This isn’t to bum you out but make you aware of patterns that may be emerging. When I was plagiarised five years ago, I thought publishing that same play might protect it but I realised that it was to teach those a@#h$%^s a lesson. But it was me, who needed that lesson of recognising my self-worth and pride in my work, another lesson of visibility of myself and that play to newer and potentially bigger audiences and an important lesson of letting it (the anger, sadness and shame) with getting copied, GO.

The final one is morbid but really gets me into action…

3) Will you regret at the end of your life not having completed this project? Who will die first: you or the idea? If you answer the idea, then seriously pass on it. We’ve all had those tragicomic moments in life where something hard comes up and you needed that to happen, in order to see the bigger picture of how short your life actually is. Go back to those 20 reasons and really think hard about whether this is the project you need to complete before you die. Then go have a cup of tea, breathe and get started on finishing that project pronto!