When to Let Go of a WIP: Letting Go Without Guilt
True Confessions - I have a basket of unfinished knitting projects. Some of them have been sitting there for three years.... or more. A sweater in progress from 2022. A pair of socks that got boring halfway through. A scarf that seemed like a good idea in January but feels completely wrong to me now. For a long time, I felt guilty about those projects. Weren't they failures? What did that say about me as a person if I didn’t finish absolutely everything I had ever started? Shouldn't I push through and finish them? Do I need to finish all these projects before even considering beginning new ones? The creative culture I'd absorbed—especially online—seemed to suggest that abandoning a project was somehow a mark against me, a lack of follow-through or commitment. But that's a dirty lie. The Cost of Finishing Everything Here's what I've learned: holding onto every project, refusing to let anything go, doesn't make you disciplined or committed. It makes you st...