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Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done Hardcover – September 24, 2019
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Awards for Start Finishing:
• Publishers Weekly Fall 2019 Top 10 Business and Economics Books
• Book Authority Best New Book in (the categories of) Time Management, Success, Productivity, and Goal Setting
• Kirkus Reviews Top Indie Book
• Montaigne Medal Finalist
• Independent Publisher Book Award 2020: Silver Award for Business/Careers/Sales
• Eric Hoffer Book Award 2020: Grand Prize
Productivity Meets Purpose―Discover a Powerful Nine-Step Method to Start Finishing the Work That Matters Most
How much of your time and attention lately has been focused on things that truly matter to you?
Most people's honest answer is: not enough.
Everyone is buried by busywork, responsibility, distraction, and fatigue.
The joy-producing, difference-making ideas are waiting for when the time is right, when the current project is over, when they have a little more money, when the kids are grown, or when they get a more understanding boss. They are waiting for someday.
The trouble is someday never comes on its own.
Start Finishing presents a nine-step method for converting an idea into a project by addressing the challenges you'll face and getting the project on a reality-based schedule.
This critically acclaimed book will teach you how to:
• Practice the five keys that lead to self-mastery
• Build your success pack of supporters, guides, peers, and beneficiaries
• Keep working through the thrashing that comes with any project that matters to you
• Chunk, link, and sequence your ideas down to doable parts
• Use the Five Project Rule to prioritize your daily schedule and be at peace with the work you choose not to do
• Fly through drag points―how to deal with head trash, no-win scenarios, and other people’s priorities
• Heatmap your schedule so you do the right work at the right time
• Overcome cascades, logjams, and tarpits―the three ways projects routinely get stuck
• Finish strong―celebrate, review, and ride the momentum to your next goal
You are not incapable, wired to struggle, or fated to be unable to get your act together. With a few key steps, you can change the way you show up, how you plan, and how you respond when things get tough.
You can Start Finishing the work that matters most to you.
Includes original contributions from Seth Godin, Susan Piver, Jonathan Fields, James Clear, and many other teachers.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSounds True
- Publication dateSeptember 24, 2019
- Dimensions7.82 x 0.89 x 9.38 inches
- ISBN-101683642635
- ISBN-13978-1683642633
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Getting To Your Best WorkDiscover what's really getting in the way of your big picture goals vs. your day-to-day reality. Get clear about what matters to you. Keep first things first and set clear boundaries, even when it's easy to buckle. Learn why discipline creates freedom. |
Practice the Five Project RuleUse the Five Project Rule to prioritize your daily schedule and be at peace with the work you choose not to do, especially important in challenging times. It's essential to navigate uncertainty, stress, and competing priorities to focus on what matters. |
Use Time BlockingFor many, the "normal" workday has collapsed, as have the school and extracurricular activities that containerize time. Discover new ways to re-create your daily structures with time blocking, anchors, new habits, and new routines. |
Editorial Reviews
Review
“START FINISHING lives up to its promise to help people get good work done…Clear and positive tones make it easy to follow along and learn how to act upon the book’s ideas right away for fast results. [Charlie Gilkey] has lots of energy and eschews hype, extremism, and prescriptive thinking in favor of strategies that are realistic, sustainable, and adaptable…“Good work” isn’t about completing a task; it’s about fulfilling a dream, making the world better, and becoming who we want to be.”
―Foreword Reviews
“Start Finishing is a game changer, a modern-day classic that will dramatically change your work. Buy two, one to write in and one to give to someone you care about.” ―Seth Godin, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Marketing
“Charlie Gilkey knows you have little trouble beginning new projects. But finishing them? That’s often another story. The good news is that Gilkey is here to help. His terrific book offers a 9-step program to turn those great ideas into finished products―and your dreams into realities.” ―Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and When
“Start Finishing is a heartfelt hug, bundled with a loving kick in the ass, a masterclass in getting unstuck, and a set of tools that finally . . . FINALLY . . . gets you out of your own way and sends you sprinting (and laughing) toward that thing, you know―that ONE BIG THING―that, until now, you’ve wanted so desperately, but never knew how to make your reality. Read it, do it, done!” ―Jonathan Fields, bestselling author of How to Live a Good Life and founder of the top-ranked podcast The Good Life Project
“Start Finishing is a brilliant handbook for professional excellence. Sure, it’s inspiring, but it goes way beyond the rah-rah to offer practical, doable, targeted strategies to actually accomplish what you may now think is impossible. Equal parts productivity guru, drill sergeant, and best pal, Charlie gives you exactly what you need to do your work with joy, with commitment, and, most of all, to completion.” ―Susan Piver, founder of the Open Heart Project
“Just like our houses, our work is filled with clutter that’s keeping us from what matters most. Start Finishing shows us how to pick the ideas and projects that we want to keep and work through seeing them to completion. If you’re ready to get over the clutter of busywork and do the work that’ll make you come alive, get this book and start finishing.” ―Joshua Becker, founder of Becoming Minimalist and author of The Minimalist Home
“Big dreams can feel overwhelming, but in this encouraging book, Charlie shows you how to get started, plan your projects, and just keep going. You don’t find the time, you make the time―and Charlie will show you how.” ―Laura Vanderkam, bestselling author of Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done and Juliet's School of Possibilities
“If you’re wondering what you should do with your life, Charlie has the answer: start finishing your best work. He goes deep into the real challenges that get in the way when you start making things that matter and teaches you proven, adaptable tools to close the gap between you and the person you want to be. Get this book and figure out your purpose, one finished project at a time.” ―Jeff Goins, bestselling author of Real Artists Don’t Starve
“My decades of helping people create their body of work and start businesses have repeatedly shown that the greatest threat to success is the lack of ability to get things done and out into the world. Charlie Gilkey is uniquely qualified to solve this problem, and Start Finishing will fundamentally change the creative and entrepreneurial landscapes. Read this book and reap the rewards for the rest of your life.” ―Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation and Body of Work
“Paths are made by walking, not waiting. In Start Finishing, Charlie Gilkey lifts us back up and walks us to the finish line of the important goals and ideas we’ve been sitting on. The result of this book is quite honestly a life filled with fewer distractions and a greater sense of daily fulfillment. It’s a must-read that we will undoubtedly be referencing and re-reading in the weeks and months ahead.” ―Marc and Angel Chernoff, New York Times bestselling authors of Getting Back to Happy
“Start Finishing offers a step-by-step process to help you get from concept to completed, no matter the project you’re trying to tackle. So many books show you how to get going on projects but few focus on how to get beyond the beginning, through the middle, and to the end result. Charlie Gilkey has written a book that does that―and does it in a way that’s tried, tested, and true. Start Finishing is a book that, once read from start to finish, will allow you finish anything time and time again.” ―Mike Vardy, productivity strategist and founder of TimeCrafting
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Sounds True (September 24, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1683642635
- ISBN-13 : 978-1683642633
- Item Weight : 1.81 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.82 x 0.89 x 9.38 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #630,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #763 in Time Management (Books)
- #1,190 in Personal Time Management
- #7,424 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Charlie Gilkey is the founder of Productive Flourishing, a website that helps changemakers (creatives, leaders, and entrepreneurs) start finishing the stuff that matters. Productive Flourishing is routinely placed in the Top 50 websites for planning, productivity, creativity, and team development for creative folks.
His most recent book Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done helps people get their best work out into the world by identifying what matters most and overcoming challenges that get in the way of finishing your most important projects.
In his previous book, Small Business Life Cycle, Charlie helps people navigate the unique lifecycles of small and microbusinesses so they can make better, more aligned choices about how to take meaningful action and drive their businesses forward.
Charlie's work is widely cited across media outlets and is routinely featured, showcased, or highlighted in places like Inc., BNET, Time, Forbes, the Guardian, Lifehacker, and more.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2019
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I was excited to receive a galley of this book, so I dug right into it. Then, I stalled out at pg 52 for *over a month*. That's where Gilkey says "Look, if it takes you 5 years to accomplish anything really significant, minus your current age from 85, then divide by 5. That's how many significant projects you can accomplish."
Dear reader, this triggered a midlife crisis.
I'm 33, and have already notice that my rate of 'accomplishment' is slowing down. I'm used to achieving things every year or two. But now that I'm not just dabbling, now that I've found the place I want to be and I'm digging deep to accomplish it, things are slow going. Oh, they're satisfying. That's why I'm here. But it was one of those surreal photozooms in a weird movie that transports you all the way to the end of the road, and, suddenly, faced with that inevitability, I panicked. "That's it!? That's all I get?"
Luckily I have a lot of accomplished friends, so I shared the quote and my feelings about it. The younger ones were on my side. We were all in either the bargaining stage, or denial. 'Well, I'll just get really good at this, and do more" or "I don't believe it. Nothing is stopping me from doing more than one big project at at time."
(The thing is, I've followed Gilkey's work for at least a decade now. The man organized supplies and convoys in the military. He groks the constraints of complexity, throughput, and sequencing the way only a person with several hundred people's lives on the line can do. If he says five years of focused effort, give or take, is what it takes, I swallow my bile and agree.)
Interestingly, the older people I showed this to were very chill about it. Some of them weren't much older than me, but they said things like "Only 7 things? That seems very doable." For them, the hard limits made a well-defined scope and allowed them to relax into the challenge. And them doing so, gave me the template to do the same.
After that long dark night of the soul, I devoured the rest of the book. Gilkey straddles the line between the high-level vision that is necessary to motivate most people and balances it with piles of tactical advice to keep them from getting bogged down when the rubber meets the road.
I still need practice with switching planning "horizons" in order to correctly plot out my time. The cheat sheets he includes, showing how different words *imply* a particular timeline. His advice about deciding what projects and what *parts* of projects it's acceptable to have just 'mediocre success' was insanely helpful to me-- I might be a little Type A in that regard, but everything can't be equally important.
Probably the most challenging (but ultimately most effective) advice will be to recruit your "success pack." It's one thing to say "I'm going for this" to myself, but to others? The problem with Charlie Gilkey is that he's so **reasonable**. You know you have no good reason not to do these things, but you don't want to do them just because it would make you show up brighter than you think you're ready for.
Like most things, reading this book won't make you actually do anything if you aren't prepared to make changes. But Gilkey does a good job of presenting even the most challenging suggestions as reasonable and not-that-hard.
Anyway, five stars for making me actually think and maybe even grow as a person. But that's just me thrashing :)
Gilkey writes, “If you like the project (and actually want to get it done), put a ring on it” (83). I smiled reading this, with inner knowledge and awareness that this is precisely the kick I needed for my new book that needs to shift from idea to project.
In ten chapters, Gilkey skillfully guides the reader (and has a podcast to assist as well), plus brought in contributions from other well-known thinkers and thought-leaders who I respect. Short highlighted callout sections are integrated throughout the 250+ pages with questions, ideas, reflective scans, principles related to the topic, and takeaways. To “clear the decks for your best work” and plan a project, then work the plan, chapters are concise, practical, and deep. I found myself thinking, “of course!”
I have a very full work life, plus significant personal projects with ideas sparking all the time. An edge for me is doing my best work that is most needed by others, allowing my ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to guide my path. I have been living this edge with intent this year, forging a new path. “Start Finishing” is a perfect impetus and guide for me to focus these last few months in 2019. Key points looped through priorities; thrashing; taking idea to project (definitely an edge for me); bending time; building focus blocks (this is huge for my demanding day work, and projects); capacity; drag points; OPP (love this—Other People’s Priorities); rethinking ‘first things first’; the creative red zone; and the value of “victory laps” – I don’t do this, and inspired, already did one! I highly recommend “Start Finishing: How to Go From Idea to Done” and know that where I will be six months from today will be directly influenced by Gilkey’s book and shifts I’m making. I am so thankful for this resource, and if you have any ideas to put a ring on, you will be too!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2019
Gilkey writes, “If you like the project (and actually want to get it done), put a ring on it” (83). I smiled reading this, with inner knowledge and awareness that this is precisely the kick I needed for my new book that needs to shift from idea to project.
In ten chapters, Gilkey skillfully guides the reader (and has a podcast to assist as well), plus brought in contributions from other well-known thinkers and thought-leaders who I respect. Short highlighted callout sections are integrated throughout the 250+ pages with questions, ideas, reflective scans, principles related to the topic, and takeaways. To “clear the decks for your best work” and plan a project, then work the plan, chapters are concise, practical, and deep. I found myself thinking, “of course!”
I have a very full work life, plus significant personal projects with ideas sparking all the time. An edge for me is doing my best work that is most needed by others, allowing my ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to guide my path. I have been living this edge with intent this year, forging a new path. “Start Finishing” is a perfect impetus and guide for me to focus these last few months in 2019. Key points looped through priorities; thrashing; taking idea to project (definitely an edge for me); bending time; building focus blocks (this is huge for my demanding day work, and projects); capacity; drag points; OPP (love this—Other People’s Priorities); rethinking ‘first things first’; the creative red zone; and the value of “victory laps” – I don’t do this, and inspired, already did one! I highly recommend “Start Finishing: How to Go From Idea to Done” and know that where I will be six months from today will be directly influenced by Gilkey’s book and shifts I’m making. I am so thankful for this resource, and if you have any ideas to put a ring on, you will be too!

Top reviews from other countries

I'm a classic starter who never finishes, so the book is aimed directly at me. And for the first time in my life, I feel optimistic I will finish some of the ideas I've worked on that the book describes as the stuff that nags you - the stuff you want to do, even need to do, but constantly put asside for the stuff you have to do.
Here's the thing though. True to type, I nearly didn't finish the book. It's hard going. The reason is that it's addressing something complex and it's comprehensive. But also - while I understand Gilkey has used a simple language that helped me greatly, it ends up confusing at times. I struggled with clumping chunks for example. The language is not managed as well as it could be from chapter to chapter either. Terms were mentioned for example - like 'the snowball method' - before they were explained, as though I should already be familiar with them. I also found I needed to remind myself what things meant when encountered two chapters after being introduced. There is no index at the end of the book to help with this problem. I've ended up with lots of small stickers referencing pages where something is explained. The contents list at the front would benefit from page numbers for each item listed - that might help where the index is missing. All this contributes to it being hard work, it does not lessen the value of the information though. So be prepared to study and you'll be glad you did.
It's definitely a book I would recommend. I think it's the best I've read for developing a way to get your ideas to the finishing line.

Addresses issues that you may have.
I would rate this as the most effective book that I have read on productivity and life itself.


