Finish Your Projects Gracefully by Planning Their Death
Chances are, you’ve started more projects in your life than you’ve finished. Some of them might even go on for a long time before you let them disappear. If you are faced with the need to abandon a project, plan for its death so you can gracefully exit and move on to the next stage.
As Christina Xu explains on Medium, ending a project isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Completing a project in a way that disappoints people who have relied on you or leaves others in trouble is far from ideal. Too often, people allow projects to die in unplanned ways, leading to resentment and loss of trust. This can make it harder for people to believe that your next project will be successful. If you always start something, but never finish it, why should they trust you? Instead, plan a graceful exit when you’re done with something:
The end of something, if not crushed and pondered, is not only a time of completion, but also a time of celebration. This is an opportunity to remember everything that happened, good and bad, and how it affected you. At the end of the day, this is a chance to tell the whole story of the project, a chance for the community you created, a chance to celebrate how they first came together, and an opportunity to exchange contact information and collect things. It’s time to say goodbye and thank you and then look ahead.
Of course, not all projects will become a huge community affair, but having at least one person working with you can help plan your exit. You are unlikely to enlist the support of those around you if you have a new project every week that you will “definitely complete this time.” However, taking a project to completion and completing it when the time is right can instill confidence, not hinder it.
Your Project Deserves a Good Death | Medium through 99u