buckworks - 9:10 pm on Dec 15, 2008 (gmt 0)

Lately I have talked to some independent webmasters who are serious underachievers. The business ambitions they talk about and the real-life actions they have taken are wayyyy out of synch. They have big dreams and great ideas, but not much that is actually up and running, ready to promote.

I'm seeing a pattern here ... numerous ideas hatched and numerous projects started then left to drag around unfinished, with too few things seen through to completion.

Unfinished business wastes resources, drains your psychic energy, chews up your schedule, and makes it harder to focus on productive new actions.

It's very easy for a creative mind to be seduced by new ideas and drawn into new projects. That's okay unless the next bright idea comes along before the last project is completed, or the work has at least reached a logical pausing point. That's the problem I'm seeing here.

I've been getting a strong sense that lack of focus is the biggest thing holding a lot of people back from major achievement.

Sometimes our focus gets scattered because life throws stuff at us and we have no choice but to respond. When that happens, do what you need to do, then get back on course.

But often the problem is our own creation: we have ideas and try to chase them all, without a realistic action plan. We spread ourselves too thin and achieve less, not more.

Worse, we start new things with no clear idea of how they'd advance our larger goals. We can't get "back on course" because we haven't defined our course in the first place.

A successful business owner whom I love dearly says that it's just as important to decide what we're NOT going to do as what we are. "Walking away from a great idea might be the smartest decision you make all year," he once told me.

I challenge you: take an inventory of your existing projects that are dragging around unfinished. Then, one by one, plan out specific action steps to finish the project and do them, or else find someone to help you. Sometimes the most sensible decision would be to cancel the project.

Resist the temptation to save a project "for later". In most cases your goal should be to deal with it or dump it!

A person (or a company) with too many unfinished projects is like a ship with barnacles and too much ballast. They can't move forward nearly as easily as they should.

They'd make more progress with a few projects executed well and others not even started yet, than a bunch of things half done.