Are you always starting new projects but rarely finishing them?
Do you find yourself with an endless source of ideas and not enough time to dedicate to seeing them through?
Are you tweaking your website, testing out new newsletter providers, recording podcasts, and writing blogs but your book is still in outline/draft mode?
If you answered “yes” to any one of these questions, then you might be suffering from Shiny Object Syndrome.
What is it?
Shiny Object Syndrome is just what it sounds like—it is the culmination of distraction and procrastination.
We get excited about the latest and greatest technology, writing tool, or gizmo and zoom off to investigate, research, and experiment.
Some crafty people fuel their procrastination under the guise of learning. They sign up for course after course and webinar after webinar because they are convinced that they must learn more before they can get started.
I know…I’ve done it.
When the going gets tough…some people jump ship
At some point in everyone’s entrepreneurial career, we hit a point where the work gets hard. The project stalls a bit because we struggle and without dedication to seeing it through, we abandon the sinking ship and hop onto a new opportunity that looks like it’ll float.
We work on one project for a while until we hit another rough patch, struggle, and then we justify abandoning it because it wasn’t working.
This cycle will continue until you stop it.
We have to be disciplined and struggle through the unsexy parts of each project in order to see it through to completion.
How can we finish more projects?
Clearly define your goals
Are you setting project-based goals? Income-based goals? Whatever they are, clearly define them and then map out a process to tackle them.
Maybe you want to publish one book in the next 12 months year that is at least 75k words.
Your writing timeline needs to be truncated a bit so that you can allow time for editing, formatting, and publishing.
So, you need to write 75k words in 6 months. That’s 12,500 words/mth or 416 words/day.
Does that sound manageable?
Find an accountability partner (or hire one)
Would you go to the gym more often if you had a free gym membership or if you were paying $200/mth for a personal trainer?
I guarantee you would show up every day if you were paying $200/mth and guess what? You’d see results!
Accountability partners can help us reach our goals but not all accountability partners are created equal.
During the publication of my first book, my husband served as my accountability partner by asking me every day, “So, what are your plans for the day?” or “How is it going?”
But, as my business grew and my tasks varied between projects, I found I needed to hire someone who could direct my energy to profitable activities, not to tasks that kept me busy but not productive.
This is why I know that free content will only take you so far and why hiring someone to check in on you every X weeks can be worth every penny you spend.
Start small and keep yourself accountable to your accountability partner. Prepare progress reports/updates like you would a manager in an office setting and check-in with each other on a regular basis.
Create both carrots and sticks
What will motivate you to reach your goals in the time you have set? If you set a certain income-based goal, reward yourself with something you really want when you reach it. Maybe it’s a trip somewhere warm and beachy or maybe it’s a nice dinner out on the town.
In order to stop deadlines from whizzing by you at an unstoppable speed, devise some punishments that provide real consequences for missing those deadlines. Be your own boss but be somewhat demanding of yourself.
If I don’t reach my writing goal each day, my usual veg-out and watch Netflix time will be used to write instead.
I will often deny myself social interaction with friends (I know, that sounds awful) until my projects are done.
“No, sorry, I can’t meet up for coffee even though I so desperately want to because I have to get this finished.”
We have to stop allowing deadlines to zoom by without consequence. Create your own incentives and disincentives.
Don’t allow yourself to change projects
As a fellow sufferer of Shiny Object Syndrome, I’ve decided to be even tougher on myself and not allow myself to even consider taking on another project until the first project is completed.
Yes, that means that some of my days are horrendously boring. Some days are incredibly frustrating and I feel like I’m barely treading water.
But, I simply cannot allow myself to abandon projects whenever I hit a technical snag or rough patch if I truly value and want to honor this idea.
Map out a full strategy for each project
Every book, course, collaboration, or blog post should have a strategy behind it. What are you trying to accomplish? We stop working on projects because we get overwhelmed by everything we need to do.
Break down the monumental task into bite-sized pieces and set a deadline for each task.
Map out your calendar and then add in a fudge factor for sickness, interruptions, and all of the things that are beyond our control that affect our work.
Set days aside for when you will take on non-project but still necessary tasks like admin, website edits, accounting, and complementary content generation, and then only work on those tasks on those days.
Minimize Your Distractions
I’m on social media a lot for my work and I found myself contributing to conversations that had nothing to do with my business.
- Install News Feed Eradicator to eliminate Facebook news feed distractions.
- Sign out completely from your email, chat messengers, and other things that notify you when you’ve received a message.
- Put your phone on Airplane Mode
- Keep your coffee, tea, water handy
Write down your #1 task and place it somewhere visible
If you’re currently working on writing, then place your daily writing goal somewhere visible to remind you to always come back to that task.
Hire other people to do your non-essential time-intensive tasks
I haven’t done this myself for many reasons but I often flirt with the idea of hiring someone to manage my social media accounts.
Find yourself a Virtual Assistant (VA) to manage your social media posts (I still recommend you do the interactions and engagement with your readers) if you find yourself struggling with consistency.
I hire two accountants (one for the US and one for Sweden) to file my taxes every year because it is worth the money to do it correctly and allows me to focus on the actual running of my business.
Say no to collaborations that aren’t 110% aligned with what you want to do
I’m all for collaborations that advance your interests and get you in front of a wider audience, but not all collaborations do that.
Sometimes, you need to say no if you’re not 110% on board otherwise it’s just another distraction that takes away from time you should be devoting to your ideas.
Recognize your tendencies and change your behavior
If you know that your work is suffering from Shiny Object Syndrome, then you need to commit to changing your behavior, which is very difficult to do, as we all know.
Best of luck as you tackle one project at a time!
If you know someone who also suffers Shiny Object Syndrome then share this blog post to unlock my video on 3 ways to boost your productivity
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Click here to watch the video on YouTube
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