The Art of Finishing

It’s a quiet Saturday afternoon. I’ve carved out a few precious hours for coding, armed with a steaming cup of coffee and the familiar urge to dive into a project. As I settle into my chair and open my terminal, I’m confronted with a challenge that’s become all too familiar: deciding which of my many unfinished projects to tackle.

I navigate to my project directory, greeted by a graveyard of half-implemented ideas and stalled works-in-progress. Each one represents a different problem I’ve tried to solve, a different technology I’ve attempted to master. They’re all interesting, each with its own purpose and potential. But as I scan through them, I can already feel my enthusiasm waning. I know that whichever one I choose, I’ll be facing not just the original problem, but a hydra of new challenges that have sprouted since I last looked at the code.

After some deliberation, I make my choice and fire up my IDE. As I pull the latest changes and begin the archaeological dig through my commit history, I brace myself for what I know I’ll find. Sure enough, there it is: an unfinished frontend task, more wireframe than polished UI. Or perhaps it’s a library integration that’s hitting limitations I hadn’t anticipated. Or, in classic over-engineering fashion, I’ve built a complex architecture for a problem that could have been solved with a simple script.

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