Long to-do list. Hundreds of browser tabs. Physical projects (3D printer, laser cutter, pen plotter, etc.). And endless ideas of what to try out and explore next. An ever-growing pile of interesting things waiting for me. Books and magazines to read. Combined with all the necessary life-supporting tasks, this doesn’t make my situation any easier when it comes to finishing those once “short-running” projects. Okay, some of them are just part of the many hobbies I tend to entertain. But really—how many hobbies can one person have and still call them hobbies?
When people ask what I do in my spare time, my answer is usually that I’m working on one of the countless unfinished projects. But why are there so many unfinished ones? Do I not have enough time? Is something missing? Maybe I’m afraid to finish them? No, that sounds silly. I know there’s always something new to work on. Am I using this as an excuse—to never seem boring and always have something to talk about? I don’t know. Maybe there are multiple reasons behind it.
The longer I live, the more I realize: I want everything to be perfect. The code I write, even for small experiments, has to be perfect before I’ll push anything to GitHub. My 3D printer must be perfectly dialed in before I’ll use it. My Mac Mini—sitting here unused since November 2024—requires the perfect Ansible install script before I’ll even set it up. I tell others that 80% is sometimes as good as 100%, that perfection is the enemy of progress. And yet, I don’t live by that myself.
I’m not sure where this comes from. Maybe my upbringing shaped this toxic pattern—toward myself and others. I am working on it. On allowing myself to be satisfied with 80%. On calling something “done” when the last 20% would take 80% of the effort (hello Pareto Principle). I struggle to accept that “not perfect” is often good enough. Because, truthfully, perfection mostly exists in my own mind.
It matters to me, and I don’t fully know why. I’ve always set the bar very high—for myself, and for what I want to accomplish. I don’t want to disappoint people. I don’t want to say no. I push through, no matter how hard, to make things happen. But that isn’t healthy. It can even be dangerous. It’s damaging, because I tell myself that failure is not an option—even though failure is how we learn. By refusing to admit I can’t do everything, I end up sacrificing a lot just to keep going.
So what can I do about this mountain of unfinished projects? How do I make progress without feeling guilty? Without feeling like I’ve failed myself for not finishing everything? Maybe the answer is to accept that some goals will never be finished, and that’s okay. The work itself can matter more than completion. I’ll keep chipping away—even if I don’t finish until my very last day.
I need to learn to say no. I need to prioritize. I need to accept that not everything has to be perfect. That failing sometimes is fine. That 80% done can be enough. And that it’s okay to finish something and move on—even if the last project wasn’t perfect.