Mark: Alright Michelle, I'm going to say the title of a book, and I want your brutally honest, one-liner review, sight unseen. Michelle: Oh, I love this game. Hit me. Mark: Start Finishing. Michelle: Sounds like the title of my New Year's resolutions list from 2015. And 2016. And... well, you get the idea. Mark: Exactly! And that's precisely the problem the author, Charlie Gilkey, sets out to solve in his book, Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done. What's fascinating about Gilkey is his background—he's a former Army logistics officer who was also a PhD candidate in philosophy. Michelle: Wait, military logistics and philosophy? That's like mixing a spreadsheet with a poem. How does that even work? Mark: That's the magic. He brings military precision to the messy, emotional chaos of getting creative work done. And the book was so well-received it became an INDIES Finalist for its practical approach. The core of his argument is that we're all drowning in ideas, but what separates the people who make an impact from those who just dream is their ability to finish. Michelle: I can definitely relate to the drowning part. My brain is a graveyard of brilliant, half-started projects. So where does the philosopher-soldier even begin to tackle that?

Mark: He starts with a really powerful reframing of the very feeling you just described. He says that when we face our most important projects—the book we want to write, the business we want to start—we experience something he calls "thrashing." Michelle: Thrashing. That sounds... unpleasant. And familiar. It’s that feeling of opening a document, staring at it, typing a sentence, deleting it, checking email, and then deciding the whole house needs to be cleaned, right now. Mark: That’s exactly it. It's the emotional flailing, the resistance, the procrastination. But here’s the philosophical twist. Gilkey argues that thrashing isn't a sign that you should stop. It's a compass. It's a signal that the project you're avoiding is deeply important to you. The more you thrash, the more it matters. Michelle: Okay, but hold on. That sounds a bit like glorifying procrastination. How do you tell the difference between productive 'thrashing' because something is meaningful, and just plain old, I-don't-want-to-do-this, spinning your wheels? Mark: The key is understanding the source of the feeling. He contrasts thrashing with what he calls "creative constipation"—the dull, low-grade pain of not doing your best work at all. That's a sign of stagnation. Thrashing is an active, emotional struggle. It happens because the project is a bridge to the person you want to become, or the world you want to create. And crossing a bridge over a deep canyon is supposed to be a little scary. Michelle: A bridge... I like that. So the fear is actually part of the journey, not a roadblock. Mark: Precisely. He uses a great story from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, to illustrate this. Clear makes a distinction between amateurs and professionals. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired to work. They wait for the thrashing to go away. Michelle: Oh, I've been waiting for that feeling to go away for about a decade. Mark: Right? But professionals, Clear says, stick to a schedule. They show up and do the work whether they feel like it or not. They accept that the thrashing is part of the process of doing meaningful work. A professional writer writes even on days they feel like a fraud. A professional athlete trains even on days they're sore and unmotivated. They've learned to work alongside the thrashing. Michelle: That makes a lot of sense. It reframes the resistance from a personal failing into just... the weather. Sometimes it's sunny and you feel great, other times it's stormy and you have to put on a raincoat and get to work anyway. Mark: Exactly. The goal isn't to eliminate the fear or the struggle. The goal is to build a system that allows you to keep moving forward despite it. It’s about acknowledging the emotion, understanding it's a sign of significance, and then having a plan so strong that the feeling doesn't get the final vote. Michelle: I’ve definitely had projects where the beginning was just agonizing. I thrashed for weeks trying to outline a big presentation. But once it was done, it was the work I was most proud of all year. The thrashing really was a compass pointing to something that mattered. Mark: And that's the heart of his philosophy. Your best work lies on the other side of your greatest resistance.

Michelle: Okay, so I've accepted that the pain is part of the process. I'm ready for my noble suffering. But my calendar is still a dumpster fire and my to-do list is a mile long. How do I actually make space for this important, thrash-worthy work? Mark: This is where the Army logistics officer takes over from the philosopher. Gilkey provides a very concrete, almost shockingly simple, architecture for action. It starts with what he calls the "Five Projects Rule." Michelle: The Five Projects Rule. Let me guess, I can only work on five projects at a time? Mark: At any given level, yes. Five projects per quarter. Five projects per month. And on any given week, you should only be actively pushing forward on five significant projects. Maximum. For most of us, he says, three is even better. Michelle: Whoa. That feels... radical. I have about seventeen things on my "active projects" list right now, and that’s just at work. It’s like you’re asking me to do a KonMari method for my ambitions. Mark: That's a perfect analogy! It is a strategic act of subtraction. He argues that we fail to finish not because we're lazy, but because we're overcommitted. Our focus is spread so thin that nothing gets enough energy to reach the finish line. We have to choose. Michelle: So you have to look at projects six through seventeen, thank them for their service, and let them go. That’s tough. It feels like giving up on good ideas. Mark: And he brings in a story from the writer Susan Piver to address that exact feeling. She talks about the need to "break up with your idea." Sometimes, an idea was great for a season, but it's no longer serving you. Continuing to pour energy into it is taking away from the one or two ideas that could actually change your life. Letting go isn't failure; it's strategic allocation of your most precious resource: your attention. Michelle: I'm curious, how does this fit into a real week? I get the 'five projects' idea in theory, but on a Tuesday afternoon when my inbox is on fire and my kid is sick, how does that actually play out? Mark: He has a system for that too. It's about designing your week with intention, using four types of time blocks. First, you have "Focus Blocks." These are 90-minute to 3-hour chunks of uninterrupted time dedicated to your most important project. Phone off, email closed. This is where you do the deep, "thrash-worthy" work. Michelle: Ninety minutes with no interruptions? That sounds like a mythical creature, like a unicorn. Mark: It takes discipline to protect, for sure. Then you have "Social Blocks" for meetings, calls, and collaboration. You have "Admin Blocks" for all the shallow work—email, paying bills, scheduling. You batch it all together so it doesn't bleed into your focus time. And finally, and this is crucial, you schedule "Recovery Blocks." Time for rest, exercise, hobbies, doing nothing. It's not leftover time; it's a scheduled part of the system. Michelle: I love that he includes recovery. So often, productivity advice feels like it's designed for robots, not humans who need to sleep and, you know, have a life. Mark: Exactly. His system is built for human beings. It acknowledges that you can't be in "focus" mode ten hours a day. The goal is to create a rhythm. A couple of focus blocks, a social block, an admin block, and then you're done. You've made real, tangible progress on what matters most, and you can shut down without guilt. It's the architecture that contains the chaos. Michelle: So you have the philosophy to give you the courage, and this weekly architecture to give you the structure. It’s the poem and the spreadsheet, working together. Mark: That's the whole model. One without the other doesn't work. A great plan without the right mindset will crumble at the first sign of thrashing. And a great mindset without a plan is just wishful thinking.

Michelle: It’s really clicking for me now. The whole idea isn't just about a new planning app or a time-management hack. It's a fundamental shift in how you relate to your own work and ambitions. Mark: Absolutely. The philosophy gives you the courage to face the fire of your most important work, and the architecture he provides builds the firebreak so you don't get burned out. The central insight is that true productivity is a courageous act of strategic elimination, powered by a deep understanding of why you're doing the work in the first place. Michelle: It’s not about doing more, faster. It’s about doing less, but better. And finishing it. Mark: And understanding that finishing one important thing unlocks possibilities that juggling twenty unfinished things never will. It builds confidence, it builds momentum, and it actually changes your reality. Michelle: Wow. That's a powerful thought. So if someone listening wanted to apply just one thing from this today, what would it be? Mark: I think it would be that act of subtraction we talked about. Look at everything you're trying to do—all your projects, goals, and "shoulds." And instead of adding another thing to the list, take one thing off. Michelle: That’s it. The one action to take is to not take action on something. To consciously choose to put one project on the back burner. To have that "break up" conversation with an idea that's been lingering for too long. Mark: It's a small act of liberation. It creates the space, the oxygen, for one of your other, more important projects to finally breathe and grow. Michelle: I love that. And for our listeners, we're curious. What's the one idea or project you're going to "break up with" this week to make space for your best work? Let us know, we'd love to hear about it. It’s a powerful step to take. Mark: It really is. It’s the first step to start finishing. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.