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# On finishing things
- URL: https://astrix-fieldnotes.adrianoamalfi.com/on-finishing-things/
- Published: 2026-07-22T13:46:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-22T14:10:05.000Z
- Description: Starting is cheap and feels wonderful. Finishing is expensive and feels like nothing at all.
- Author: Devin Hale
- Tags: Process

The last ten per cent of a project has no reward built into it. The idea is no longer exciting, nobody is watching yet, and everything left is small, fiddly and unglamorous — the naming, the edge cases, the copy nobody will read.

## What helps

- Writing down what "done" means *before* the excitement wears off
- Doing the boring last bits first thing, when the day still has fuel in it
- Accepting that the finished version will be less interesting than the imagined one

That last one took me a decade. Everything you finish is a downgrade from the version in your head, and shipping it anyway is the whole job.