What's your project work-style?
I'm a starter. My husband is a plodder. We are lacking a finisher in our house.
Starters get the ball rolling. Plodders toil on keeping the project going. And finishers come along and cap it all off with an ending. While we are all a blend of all three of these work-styles, most of us tend towards one style, more than the other two.
Starters are invaluable for their ability to have a vision and dive right in to any endeavor. Starters plan incessantly. They are the creative vision in a group, with their enthusiasm at it's peak in the early stages of any project.
Plodders are those who actually do the bulk of the work. Their special skill is the abiltity to keep on working, even when the job has become overwhelmingly dull to the starter. Without a plodder, endeavors would die just after inception.
Finishers are the ones who come along, have a vision for the end of a project, and just cap it all off. They like completion. Where a starter and a plodder like the project to continue, as it gives them continuity and a purpose with the work, the finisher has the unique ability to see that a finished job will provide the most satisfaction, and open the opportunity for future projects, thus beginning the cycle again.
If your household has only starters, then life and home tend to look like a bunch of piles of messes, many endeavors begun, but abandoned.
If you have only plodders, then nothing ever seems to get done. No one begins anything, so there is no work for the two plodders to continue on with.
And if your household has only finishers, there is nothing to put that finishing touch on.
For myself, as a starter, I love the beginning of anything. The new year is of particular delight for me, as my possibilities feel endless. I begin to drag about 1/3 into any project, and find completion extremely difficult. I'm enthusiastic, but lack discipline when it comes to the dull work, and have a strange desire NOT to finish any project.
My husband is usually drafted into the dull work around our house. He is especially gifted at handling the less interesting stuff. Because he can do this, we have managed some very large projects, like a large brick patio in our back yard. My enthusiasm would die an early death if it were not for his plodding ability.
Where we fall short is not having a finisher here. I tend to see projects as open-ended. I like that. It gives me freedom to continue creating and make changes with one endeavor. But I also realize that our lives and home would have an incomplete look in every corner, without a finisher in residence.
One of the areas I am putting effort into is developing some "finishing skills", envisioning the end. I need to find a reason to want something to come to completion, to find the motivation to do the work necessary to finalize a project. This part of the job is mind work. And I am finding that if I take the time to imagine life and home with a job totally done, then I can put in the work to see it through.
I do need some plodding skills, for the projects where the work team is me, myself and I. But I'll continue to rely on my husband for the joint projects.
Knowing what kind of person I am, with regards to projects, helps me to overcome my areas of weakness. I am hoping that my ramblings here can help you, as well. For me, just putting something down on paper, or reading someone else's idea on a subject, helps to clarify something in my mind, and propel me to achievement in an area I once thought not possible for me.
Have you worked on a project recently where you can identify which work-style you embody most? What ways did you motivate yourself to fill the gaps in your style? If you are a starter, how do you get yourself to continue on? If you are a plodder or finisher, what do you do to jump-start yourself into a project?
