Finishing what you start

One thing I’ve noticed since I started blogging is that starting a blog entry is a lot easier than finishing it. There are plenty of things to write about and I find it pretty easy to start a new blog (I usually do this in my head first and try to think it through before committing it to paper). It’s a lot harder to finish them, however. My blog draft file is full of ½ completed blogs that are waiting for me to finish up. I’ve been thinking about this a bunch recently and trying to figure out if this is specific to blogging (or any forming of putting thoughts to paper) or if it is just a part of the human condition - something that we generally don’t notice since we’re not often presenting our ideas in an organized format (or without getting immediate feedback).  After considering this for a while and thinking about it as I sat through meetings and talked with people in the past weeks, I think that the answer is that this is not something that is specific to blogging at all.  Humans as a general rule are pretty good about coming up with ideas, but pretty poor at thinking them all the way through.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – feedback from others on partial ideas often helps us think them all the way through.  That said, I think I’m going to try to make an effort to better think through (from start to finish) what I say before I jump in with an idea.

Comments

[Dave Jilk]

I've thought about this question as well.

Although it's certainly an aspect of human nature generally, blogging brings the issue to the fore.

A blog is not a very good forum for completely thought-through discussions and arguments. Readers don't have the patience, and writers don't have the time.

The forum for a fully thought-out idea is the essay. A blog entry can just be the ideas without the demonstration or proof.

[Derek Woolverton]

I think part of the issue is that its writing something down and creating a permanent record that makes it more important to tie together (at least for some of us--others seem to be able to blurt out whatever is on their mind in 20 words or less and move on to the next topic.)

The internet only makes it worse of course as the record is there for all the ages (at least in internet time), and for anybody to find through a search or two. Its amazing some of the ancient stuff people find on me when they do a search prior to meeting with me.