Start Finishing

How to Go from Idea to Done

By: Charlie Gilkey

Narrated by: Charlie Gilkey

Productivity Meets Purpose - Discover a Powerful Nine-Step Method to Start Finishing the Work That Matters Most

How much of your time and attention lately has been focused on things that truly matter to you?

Most people's honest answer is: not enough.

Everyone is buried by busywork, responsibility, distraction, and fatigue.

The joy-producing, difference-making ideas are waiting for when the time is right, when the current project is over, when they have a little more money, when the kids are grown, or when they get a more understanding boss. They are waiting for someday.

The trouble is someday never comes on its own.

Start Finishing presents a nine-step method for converting an idea into a project by addressing the challenges you'll face and getting the project on a reality-based schedule.

The book will teach you how to:

• Practice the five keys that lead to self-mastery
• Build your success pack of supporters, guides, peers, and beneficiaries
• Keep working through the thrashing that comes with any project that matters to you
• Chunk, link, and sequence your ideas down to doable parts
• Use the Five Project Rule to prioritize your daily schedule and be at peace with the work you choose not to do
• Fly through drag points - how to deal with head trash, no-win scenarios, and other people’s priorities
• Heatmap your schedule so you do the right work at the right time
• Overcome cascades, logjams, and tarpits - the three ways projects routinely get stuck
• Finish strong - celebrate, review, and ride the momentum to your next goal

You are not incapable, wired to struggle, or fated to be unable to get your act together. With a few key steps, you can change the way you show up, how you plan, and how you respond when things get tough.

You can Start Finishing the work that matters most to you.

*Includes original contributions from Seth Godin, Susan Piver, Jonathan Fields, James Clear, and many other teachers.

©2019 Charlie Gilkey (P)2019 Sounds True

Critic reviews

“Charlie Gilkey knows you have little trouble beginning new projects. But finishing them? That’s often another story. The good news is that Gilkey is here to help. His terrific book offers a 9-step program to turn those great ideas into finished products - and your dreams into realities.” (Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and When)

“Just like our houses, our work is filled with clutter that’s keeping us from what matters most. Start Finishing shows us how to pick the ideas and projects that we want to keep and work through seeing them to completion. If you’re ready to get over the clutter of busywork and do the work that’ll make you come alive, get this book and start finishing.” (Joshua Becker, founder of Becoming Minimalist and author of The Minimalist Home)

“Big dreams can feel overwhelming, but in this encouraging book, Charlie shows you how to get started, plan your projects, and just keep going. You don’t find the time, you make the time - and Charlie will show you how.” (Laura Vanderkam, bestselling author of Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done and Juliet's School of Possibilities)

So very practical!

My ADHD brain latched on to the building block method of time management. I am excited to implement these strategies.

Overall, good!

The author said that in order to succeed we have to focus on "one" thing at the expense of all else, forever. I hate this because I have a billion interests and the list keeps growing. And even though most self-help gurus say this, I just find it torture to not be able to do ALL the stuff I love (fitness, programming, art, cooking, reading, meditation, etc.)
In the author's defense, he SAYS that you need to do one thing forever, but his system allows for multiple smaller goals alongside the one large goal, which is a compromise of sorts. There is nothing really "new" in this book. 90% of what he says can be found on YouTube. But that's true of all self-development.
The best ideas don't change.

Good tips, practical

I found this book very engaging and easy to listen to. It was action oriented and concise.

He thought of EVERYTHING!!!

Charles Gilkey calls out every roadblock, situation, excuse, psychological mind trick I've ever come across when dealing with projects. The magic is in the solutions he provides. The level of detail & examples he uses are very helpful in pushing through resistance because he's distilled the problem to its simplest form & solutions. He removes the barrier of entry back into picking up stuck projects & provides a framework for the reader to build on it & make it their own. I purchased the workbook & am going through the book again much slower & start to implement in my current projects. I'm so hopeful I've started fllowing his substack community & youtube channel. Once I get into a good routine implementing this book, I'm going to read his book on Teams.

Lots of workable ideas here ..

Full disclosure: I have met the author a few times through a charity that we both support and I have heard him speak, so when this book came out I was really interested. I also have listened to his podcast Productive Flourishing for years.

This book is broken down into the 3 sections. The middle section is focused on the calendar system that Charlie promotes which I have heard him speak on before so was not a big surprise to me.(hard to know if this was a new idea for other or not)
For me I really liked the beginning and the end sections and really took away several things that will positively affect my work and life..

One of the big things that I took away is to finish things, we have to be willing to let go of things that are not done. I am a professor so that is the hardest, incomplete projects roll around forever and bring us lots of guilt and truly interrupt what we will we can get done by sapping our energy. Others have told me let that project or this project go, but it did not click for me until the way it was presented in this book. The parts about setting priorities were the most useful to me and made this book worth every penny to me.

Other parts that spoke to me: Planning for success not avoiding failure, and also the importance of start dates - new projects languish without a date where activity will start..
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This may be a collection of ideas that are in other books, but I have read 2 other books on finishing and honestly did not take anything away from them. So if finishing projects is an issue for you, I think you may find useful ideas here

I enjoy a business book or relationship book on long drives and this was a good fit for me. I have recommended to others both in print and in audio