Start what you finish

There are people who start projects and people who start them and finish them. Then there's the rest of us who fall somewhere on the scale of 1 to 10 about the finishing part. (I'm leaving out those who never start because, well, I just can't relate.) Procrastination is the bane of those of us who start projects and for one reason or another, find we are unable to finish. It is a dirty word, an ugly slur. It gives us and our projects a bad reputation. I, for one, do not procrastinate.

I like to consider myself one of the finishers. I usually finish, I like to finish, and it bothers me when I don't finish. The fact that my projects are often messy and take up a lot of room adds to my discomfort when the mess sits around for months on end. Case in point: the seat cushions for the kitchen chairs. I started with a bang… several bangs in fact. The first step was unscrewing all the screws that held each seat onto its chair body… no problem, only five per chair. Next was the cleaning and oiling of the wood. Not too hard… no sense putting new cushions on dirty chairs, right? Measuring and cutting material for the cushions, washing and drying it followed. And then there was the prying out of the tacks. Now the project water started to get murky. Losing interest big time by about chair number four. But at this point I'd already removed the screws from eight chairs. Time for a diversion. (A diversion is different from a procrastination in that it diverts you from the negative vibes of a project going south and you can return to same project with renewed interest and determination to finish.) In this case the diversion was making scones. Food is always a valid diversion.

Back to the project—and another snag. The staple gun we have is a light-duty variety and refused to insert the staples into the wood. In fact they bounced right off. Good thing I saved all those tacks. However, hammering nails is not one of my strong suits. I glue things rather than sew or hammer because I have a talent for glue. But this project definitely required hammering. I started hammering. An hour and a half later one seat was finished.

It was obviously time for Alternate Plan B. (Alternate Plan Bs may resemble procrastination in that they rethink the scope of a project and arrive at the conclusion that it will take longer than originally anticipated. The prototype (in this case chair number 1) has given valuable information for a more realistic timeline. One a day. Given my other responsibilities, I can conceivably hammer and reattach one seat cushion per day to finish the project.

So today is day 2. This afternoon I spent forty-five minutes hammering tacks, got bummed and came up here to write this blog. (Not procrastination, another diversion.) I'm heading back down to the cellar as soon as I press "post" and finish the *#!!% seat. Maybe I'll take a picture of the one that's finished… after I hammer. Because I do not procrastinate.