{"id":635,"date":"2007-05-16T00:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-16T04:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/autisticme\/?p=635"},"modified":"2023-11-26T16:35:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T22:35:09","slug":"never-ending-projects-never-completed-that-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2007\/05\/16\/never-ending-projects-never-completed-that-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Never-ending Projects (Never Completed, That Is)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Completing tasks is a real challenge for me. This is definitely why I was diagnosed with ADHD years before high-functioning autism<\/a> became the official label for my odd mix of traits. ADHD with seizures, repetitive movements, and a long list of other ill-fitting characteristics.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of incomplete projects dating back more than two decades<\/strong>. I also have many completed projects I never seriously tried to publish or distribute. In other words, I do a lot of writing, sketching, programming, and planning without following through to the expected conclusion.<\/p>\n

What’s strange is that I do complete, with a lot of anxiety from a perfectionist streak, school work, magazine columns, grant applications, handouts for my students, and projects assigned by other employers. So, it isn’t everything I don’t complete… just the projects I seem to really want to complete for myself<\/strong>. My perfectionism<\/a> is limited (somewhat) by deadlines, but when there is no deadline, I never stop reworking a project.<\/p>\n

Perfectionism is unhealthy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I outlined a series of science fiction stories in the fifth grade. I have all the notes from fifth grade through the present. I start writing the stories, get depressed with the results, and restart. I’m not a science fiction \/ fantasy reader because I find flaws in the stories. I want to write something that is impossible to write, of course. Novels, regardless of genre, contain minor errors, but anything scientific is going to be especially challenging to perfect. I should just write, be done with one of the novels, and move ahead.<\/p>\n

I’ve done no better with my start-stop-start over crime novels or thrillers. I complete something… then decide it should be rewritten. More often, I reach the half-way mark and start again, as if 60,000 words or more should be tossed aside.<\/p>\n

Now, I do complete some stories. In fact, I’ve completed a lot of short stories<\/a>, theatrical scripts, and lots of poetry. But, I don’t do anything with those works, either, because I wonder how good they really are. Self-doubts eventually win and I do nothing with the works.<\/p>\n

I’ve tried weekly deadlines for myself, writers groups, and having a student edit my works. Nothing seems to counter the pattern of starting over too often. I’m hoping this changes someday.<\/p>\n

It’s sad that I can be amazingly productive and end up canceling out my efforts with panic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Completing tasks is a real challenge for me. This is definitely why I was diagnosed with ADHD years before high-functioning autism became the official label for my odd mix of traits. ADHD with seizures, repetitive movements, and a long list of other ill-fitting characteristics. I have a lot of incomplete…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingNever-ending Projects (Never Completed, That Is)<\/span> <\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":19,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[36,187,296,531],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-add-adhd","tag-creative-writing","tag-focus","tag-perfectionism","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2023\/12\/Podcast-HD-1920x1080-comp-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivLC-af","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3942,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/3942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}