I can’t be the only person in the world who thinks they’ve finished a job to realise later it’s not quite done.
My wife has a pet name for me when I fall into this situation.
She calls me Arthur, short for Arthur Job (get it?)
It got me thinking about distractions at work, often the bottleneck to completing work items.
In Agile software delivery, there’s a classic quote that’s reminded to teams;
“Stop starting, start finishing.”
It’s for those situations when you’ve nearly finished something but decided to shift focus to something else, either as a shiny new distraction or getting blocked and frustrated.
Don’t be Arthur. Finish what you started.
Share this story with your teams, make it a catchphrase when work is taking longer than expected.
(Apologies to any Arthurs out there who pride themselves on completing things. You’re clearly better than me.)