What makes something great in our work?
As I sit in the studio getting ready to record this podcast, I am finding the irony of the topic to really have a stinging bite to it. As I look across the studio, I see so many things that aren’t done, from putting away images recently returned from the gallery, to still lifes yet unfinished, to the buzz of the hard drive telling me that I haven’t finished the last of the organization of keywords and collections from my travels over the past 6 weeks.
It has me wondering if getting things finished is the mark of a great artist. I can’t count the number of conversations I have had with other photographers who, like me, don’t always finish what they start. There’s a certain weight that comes with those ongoing unfinished “projects”. So in this week’s podcast, we’ll clean up, organize and finish a topic on our relationship with finishing our work. Before we jump in, this is episode 598 of the podcast, and I can’t believe that we are just two weeks away from episode 600 of the weekly episodes. Crazy to think that I have been doing this for 600 weeks. Finishing a podcast every week, I can finish, but that printed folio….I digress.
Let’s explore what happens when things remain unfinished.
One of the biggest challenges that I think a lot of us face is when we realize that whatever we didn’t finish becomes just another line on our to-do list of things to finish. As this to-do list grows longer and longer, it can weigh heavily on our creative practice and make us think that we’re not able to successfully create anything at any time of any value. That is the trap of the unfinished; it creates in us a feeling that we aren’t able to accomplish what we set out to do on any given day.
What are things that don’t get finished?
One of the biggest challenges in figuring out the unfinished is that we often finish things that cost us all hours of the night to accomplish our goal, and other things slip by us.
I think, if we are honest about it and sit down and make a list of the things we don’t finish, it might be somewhat depressing at first. However, in the long run, we might actually find that things we can let go of. You know, the parts of our creative practice that don’t really matter to us, but we are told they should matter to us. And like many things we should do and shouldn’t do, they don’t need to happen to keep us moving forward.
So, what are some of those unfinished projects we face? Everyone is a little different, but the biggest issue is likely the tasks we pursue endlessly with no real outcome. If we take an honest look at our uncompleted tasks, it may start off feeling a little daunting, but upon reflection, we often discover that some of these projects have no real significance anymore. Again, we feel pressured to finish, not because they genuinely resonate with us, but because we think they should.
What would it look like if we did finish things?
One of the interesting aspects of thinking about this for a couple of weeks is realizing the value of having something finished, being able to take it off that to-do list, and marking it as done, for no other reason than getting to have it done. Back in my corporate job, it was a lot easier. I think that to finish things there, there were outside deadlines, outside expectations, people who wanted things done at a certain time, and to get them to be quiet and leave me alone, I would end up just doing it (ha ha), but now I’m working at my own pace, at my own speed. I find that it’s easier for me to get enamored with the new and to get frustrated by the old or what happens to me a lot; I walk out of the studio one day and come in the next and start something new for the day with no thought to yesterday. It’s easy to get discouraged when we think about things that we don’t finish, but in the long run, when we do start to make that shift, I think we end up in a much better place.
I think when we finish things, we end up feeling better. We have a sense of accomplishment; we feel like we’re taking steps forward. In many cases, we now have work. We can share, showcase or look at and say, “I have developed skills that matter, regardless of our ultimate decisions on how we finish.” In many cases, the ends are more important than the means. Like all journeys, we’re not sure which road we may be on, but we do know that once we reach our destination of having something successfully finished, things work out better.
So how do we get more finished?
This is one of the hardest things, I think, because for each of us, there’s something different that gets us to finish; each of us is motivated by different things and inspired by different things. Some of us are more apt to finish than others, but one of the important things I mentioned earlier is to go back to that initial to-do list of the things you wish you had finished, and this is where the important part comes in. We have to decide what is actually worth finishing. Working on a project that goes nowhere and offers no value isn’t something that needs to be finished. Often, we start things because we need to try things, learn things, experience and experiment. We don’t have to clean the plate if we don’t like the food. By letting those things go as needing to be finished, we make space and room for other things to happen, and I think for me that’s the big inside. Is it finished? Doesn’t necessarily mean completing it; it just means I’m ready to walk away from it with purpose and with intention, not because of some arbitrary reason of avoidance, insecurity, anger, or whatever else is brewing in me on that day.
For me, the big thing that helped was to grab a couple of highlighters on that list and mark off the ones that mattered, the ones I could let go, the ones that I could do quickly and the ones that would take a long time. Just having that structure helped make a big difference. I also think it allowed me to recognize that there are times and places where other priorities may show up. We can accept that. Now I don’t think that is reflected in that box of things that needed to be moved to the shed that’s been sitting by my studio door for four weeks. That probably could be moved to the studio around the corner in 30 seconds and no longer be on the unfinished list. Still, we have to know what those tasks are. We have to figure those things out. That’s part of our struggle.
So this week I would encourage you to spend a little bit of time thinking about your unfinished list and decide what matters to you and what doesn’t. I think the worst thing that could happen is you might free up some time and free up some headspace, and in the best case, you might find that there are a lot of things you could finish quickly and take a lot of pride in your work if you just gave yourself that last little bit of time to focus in and finish something amazing.
To sum it all up, finishing projects matters because they provide us with clarity, success, and ultimately, a deeper connection to our creative passion. Don’t shy away from what you have on your plate, even if you walk away. Recognizing which pursuits resonate with you will illuminate the paths that truly inspire and excite you.
