How I Finish Everything I Start

What if I told you I have never signed up for a course, training, or program that I haven’t finished…?

honestly, if you’re like most people I tell this to, you wouldn’t believe me…
And I get why that is!

There's a statistic that you've probably seen before online: 90% of the people who sign up for online classes/courses/memberships/trainings don't complete them! (In fact, the real stats, from higher education researchers, technically show that 93% of students won't finish).

So, the question becomes:
how do we become part of the 10% that DO finish?

How can we make sure we're consistently showing up, learning, and getting what we need out of these memberships, such as the one that I run—the Anti-Burnout Collective memberships?

I don't mean to brag, but I'm kind of a ninja at this. I'm also an Upholder (see Gretchen Rubin's 4 Tendencies Quiz), so perhaps that's why this is easier for me. But I have never signed up for a course that I didn't finish and - every single time - this is the system that I've used to do so.

1. I decide what a doable frequency is

2. I break out the lessons into tasks inside of my Notion planner

3. I leave room for error/the unexpected. If I don't complete a lesson on the day I specified, I don't freak out about. I just get it done the next time I can. I also am not afraid to amend and adjust my timelines if something isn't working.

Let’s dive a little bit deeper into this process below—and I highly recommend you check out the YouTube video where I give you a sneak peek into my systems.

#1
Decide on a practical timeline

This is the first big thing I see so many high-achievers do wrong—and I’ll admit, I sometimes still do it to. Hell, I just signed up for a copywriting course that I’m already kind of wondering if I bit off more than I can chew…

So, let me get into the nitty-gritty of what it means to have a practical frequency and timeline for completing your course, training, membership, etc.

• Deciding on the frequency you’re going to sit down and work on your training/membership/course. Are you going to try to complete a module a week? A video a week? What amount of time do you have space for every week? If it’s not much, you’re going to have to adjust your timeline down.

• Take your other commitments into consideration. This is where I recommend having a master calendar. I am all for compartmentalizing your calendar. I have different calendars for birthdays, reminders, my day job, self-care activities, social activities, client appointments, etc. But I think it’s really important to look at all of these calendars at once to really get a much better picture of what all is on your plate. If you compartmentalize too much, you’re not going to have a feel for everything that’s on your plate. If you have a lot, then that’s going to extend your timeline.

This is a really important step because we really need to set ourselves up for success here and how we set ourselves up for successful is by picking a timeline that is achievable from the get-go, especially when it comes to the completion of a project.

I’m all for making your goals and dreams ambitions, but I think our timelines really need to be practical and realistic! At this step, it’s important to be very real with yourself on what you can actually commit to.

#2
Break down your project/course/etc.

This is the next big step. Whether you’re talking about a project, a course, a membership, the next big step is to break it down into sub-steps. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: don’t put projects on your to-do list. You’ll spend more time trying to figure out what the next step is than it might take to do that next step.

For example, if I were working on a podcast, here is my workflow—a workflow I’ve automated inside of my Notion planner. These are all sub-tasks that I can use to start scheduling things out:

• Outline podcast/youtube video

• Write blog post using podcast outline

• Outline announcements and advertisements (record separately)

• Record podcast (& YT Video simultaneously)

• Create Canva graphics for blog, podcast, and YouTube

• Create show notes page on podcast page

• Edit YouTube video (if no actual footage, overlay podcast audio on image)

• Schedule podcast on Anchor

• Schedule blog to post

• Schedule youtube to go live

• ON LIVE DAY: Copy embed link from Spotify onto show notes page

• ON LIVE DAY: Share to Pinterest (blog, podcast, Youtube)

I do the exact same thing with courses, trainings, and programs that I sign up for, whether it’s for personal development or professional development. For these, I break down the lessons, and those represent my subtasks. I know, I know—this is so type A of me, but, honestly, it keeps me super organized and that’s kind of the important part of this whole project…

#3
Schedule those sub-tasks into your planning system (& allow for some leniency )

This is perhaps the simplest and most effective part of this whole process.

In the last step, you broke everything out into subtasks. Now, this part is about assigning a due date to everything in that list of sub-tasks.

This is where your timeline becomes important, and where you find out if the timeline is practical.

There are two different ways we could do this:

1. Use the frequency you decided on above and work forward. For example, if you’ve decided you’re going to do 1 lesson a week, schedule out your lessons by working forward.

2. Use your deadline and work backward. If you’ve decided you’re going to finish something on December 31st, work backward from that deadline and determine how frequently you need to show up to get that done. Then ask yourself, is that reasonable?

You’ll also see in the table to the right that there are two date columns—a target deadline and a date completed.

This is the way that I’m “allowing for some leniency". I might have a “target deadline” that I’m working toward, but sometimes we get busy or we don’t have the time or bandwidth to fit in something on the timeline that we originally planned. That’s okay! And that’s the leniency I’m allowing myself: to complete the task on a different date than I was targeting.

Which brings me to my next tip…

#4
Don’t be a perfectionist!
Seriously - don’t!

Don’t be a perfectionist about when things get done. Don’t be a perfectionist about your timeline. The important message of “done is better than perfect” is more important now than ever.

So many of us as high-achievers “perfect” ourselves into not actually finishing the things that we start. As soon as something goes off track—we miss a deadline, half-ass something, etc.—we get so down on ourselves that we give up.

It’s like if we’re not the best, most badass, most productive, most dedicated person doing the thing we’re doing, it’s not worth doing. That mindset is going to hold you back because the fact of the matter is, you’re not perfect. I’m not either. No one is—no matter how their Instagram looks or who they are.

We’re all going to overload ourselves at times. We’re all going to take on too much. It happens! And if you come from the lens of “I have to achieve this thing perfectly or it’s not worth it”, you’re going to fail. Quit. And you’re only going to do that because you’re expecting perfection or nothing.

#5
Gamify it as much as possible…

This is just to keep you motivated to keep going and how we can do that is by giving ourselves some sort of reward OR having something that quantifies and show us that we’re making progress toward our goals.

I do this with a fun, simple tracker inside of my Notion planner. The goals that I’m working on are front and center with the goal, the deadline and how I close I am to finishing it! Seeing those percentages tick up is super motivating and helps me feel not only like I’m making some serious progress on my goals, but also gives me an idea of how close I am to achieving those goals. This gamificaiton makes it motivating for me to keep working hard.

So, that’s it…

These are my tricks to Finish what you start—always!

But, I do want to jump back to what I said at the beginning of this article. I'm an Upholder. It’s one of Gretchen Rubin’s 4 tendencies, which I’ll get to in just a second, but what it means is that I’m able to follow through on commitments that I make to myself because it’s enough for me to uphold my commitments to myself. I don’t need to uphold them to anyone else.

However, you might not be like that. I recommend checking out Gretchen Rubin's 4 Tendencies Quiz to figure out what your tendency is. Some of us are rebels and—I’ll admit—this process may not work for you because you may just rebel against the systems you’ve put in place for yourself. Some of us are obligers, meaning we’re more inclined to do things for others rather than for ourselves. People like this might need more accountability. Lastly, some of us are questioners. Questioners need to know why they’re doing something. We need to have a compelling reason for what we’re doing. To help with that, I do what I call a TRANSFORMATION test. It’s a riff-off of the SMART goal setting system because—frankly—I don’t like SMART goals. You can take a peak at the TRANSFORMATION test below…

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
how might this process benefit you in achieving your goals…?

Drop a comment below!

And don’t forget to check out my Anti-Burnout Notion Digital Planner, which makes all this magic happen so well!