Writer's Update · There’s No Villain Here
What my productivity looks like from the outside and within?
This piece explores creative burnout, having too many ideas, and the struggle with shiny object syndrome. It dives into what it really means when you can’t finish what you start, the gap between ideas and execution, and how to stay focused as a writer or creator managing multiple ideas at once.
There’s a very specific kind of frustration I keep running into. Not the kind where I’m stuck or out of ideas. The opposite. I’ve got too many of them.
It looks productive from the outside. It feels like I’m doing a lot. But if I’m honest, not much actually lands. I’ve been circling this for a while, maybe my whole life, and yeah… let’s dive in.
No Villain
There’s no villain here. No algorithm, no lack of time, no external force working against me. This one’s 100% on me. I keep spreading myself too thin, jumping from one idea to the next, scattering my focus all over the place.
I should know this by now. I should know myself by now.
The problem isn’t that I have nothing to write or nothing to do. I do. I also have way too many things pulling me in different directions at the same time.
Not That Kind of Problem
I keep hearing about different types of writers. Plotters, pantsers, character-driven, world-builders, people who outline everything, people who just go.
That’s all fine. I get it. I even recognize parts of myself in those.
But that’s not what this is. This isn’t about how I write. This is about how I operate. I have my way of creating, sure, but the real issue is that I’m all over the place.
Not just in my writing, but in life in general.
This article is a perfect example of the problem. Shouldn’t I be writing about my dystopian poetry?
So Many Ideas
I’ve got ideas. Way too many of them. Writing ideas, business ideas, marketing angles, art projects, new apps, new platforms, new ways to do the same thing I was doing yesterday.
I’m basically a walking shiny object syndrome.
I’ll get obsessed with something, go all in, build momentum fast, get a ton done… and then drop it. Not because it’s a bad idea, but because I’ve already burned through the interesting part. The dopamine is gone.
Once I’ve proven to myself that it could work, maybe even that it’s a great idea, that’s it. No fuel left to actually finish the thing.
I don’t run out of ideas. I run out of follow-through.
Starting Is Easy
Starting things is not my problem. I start all the time. I start strong.
I’m like a rocket with all that launch power but rarely do I reach beyond the atmosphere.
I’ll take an idea, run with it for days, sometimes weeks, go deep, build it out, even validate it with numbers just to prove to myself it makes sense. And it often does. That’s the annoying part.
I’m not chasing bad ideas. I’m just not finishing good ones.
And the prioritization? Basically non-existent. It takes me the same mental energy to plan housecleaning as it does to spin up a new, in-depth business concept. Absolutely no difference. Everything feels equally important in the moment.
Same Pattern, Different Scale
When I look back, this isn’t new. There are times I’ve actually done really well in my career. On those occasions, I also wasn’t doing it alone.
I was the one who got things moving, started fast, pushed ideas forward. Then someone else came in for the routines, locked things in, made it sustainable. That combo worked.
Left on my own, I default to the same pattern. Start strong, go deep, lose interest, move on.
In many ways I feel like a big kid sometimes. There, I said it. Not in a bad way, but in a very real way. Curious, fast, easily excited, easily distracted. Great for spreading the Legos, not so great at cleaning them up.
This Is My Wiring
At some point I have to admit this isn’t a phase. This is how I’m wired. I’m never going to suddenly become that calm, focused, one-thing-at-a-time person. That’s not me. And honestly, trying to force that has probably broken me and things around me more than it fixed.
All I can do is be brutally honest about it.
I can’t control the fact that I get pulled into new ideas fast, but I can control how many of those I allow in. I can limit the triggers. I can decide what deserves my attention and what doesn’t.
I can lean in my strengths and keep starting things. I can design my projects so, that I get new stages of novelty in them as I move forward. New challenges.
Focus isn’t something that just happens to me. It’s something I have to design daily. I cannot just think, that I’ll finish this article later since that later never comes. I finish it now or I just simply don’t.
Picking My Fights
The real shift is this. I can’t build everything. I can’t maintain everything. And although I keep pretending I can, I’ll just keep repeating the same loop.
So I need to get real good at picking my fights. And I have become better at this. I’ve improved a tiny bit in figuring out what actually matters.
I try to sleep on an idea before I rush into it to evaluate better what I’m willing to let go, even if it’s a good idea. Especially if it’s a good idea.
I cannot ‘not start things’. I need a simple system in the background that doesn’t eat all my attention. I cannot ‘not think in multiple directions’.
That’s how I tick, how I think so I work around it. I try to figure out how to do less, but real, how to keep the novelty going, how to work in multiple streams without collapsing or collapsing the project.
So less, but real, it is.
I’m Fine
Is this something I need to fix? Maybe I just need to stop pretending I can work like productivity gurus tell me to. Fine, I’m different. I know how I work. I’ve seen the pattern play out and spread all over enough times.
The problem starts when I ignore this. When I ignore myself.
So, while juggling multiple balls in the air, I’ll keep this simple. One lane or stream at a time, one per day. Fewer triggers. Honesty about what I can actually carry.
I’m not broken, not too broken at least. I’m just wired this way. If I work with that instead of against it, things might actually start to click.
We’ll see.
Again.
Ddoes this sound familiar? I’m curious.
Do you deal with the same thing, or do you actually finish what you start?
Are you more of a starter or a finisher? Or stuck somewhere in between like me?
Do you limit your ideas, or just accept the chaos and work around it?
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WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. More background: Square One.
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The last 10% of a project is always the hardest. Not because it's difficult but because it's tedious and I'm burned out on it by then.
I deal with the same and hoped you had an easy fix!