70 is the Magic Number

There's a magnet that seems to be quietly pulling us toward the couch these days. The season silently screaming it's time to finally relax, to get under a blanket, and just be.

Nowhere to go.

No deadlines exist.

Nothing to accomplish but to sink in the plushness of just chilling the freak out.

But reality checks us like a splash of ice water from a glass left outside in winter that, indeed, there are loose ends left to tie up and new projects waiting for us in just a few short weeks.

Some of those projects might not even be new, but things that just ran out of steam in 2025. Started, stalled, kind of forgotten, until someone sends you that email asking for updates, for which you don't have any.

Why are there some things that just seem to evaporate into the ether? It isn't so much that they aren't worth pursuing. They are. It's just that somewhere along the way, there was a bump on the road, it flooded, and it got buried. Until the skies clear and you have to dig up the mess that was left.

SO.

How can we avoid having such loose ends? At least, not too many of them? There are enough productivity and self-actualizing hacks out there - schedule regular check-ins, work on it in the morning when you're still full of energy, visualize it to completion, etc. But I think one important thing to consider is what actually causes the inaction that dodges any form of traction.

I think one typical culprit is the tendency to have everything perfect - all dominoes have to be lined up just so - before taking the next step. There's absolute merit in crossing all your T's...

BUT.

Sometimes we get so lost in the details, some that don't even matter that much, that we lose sight of the entire chessboard.

There will be times when 100% isn't all that necessary to push the needle. There will be instances when you need to move on at 70%. You're not at iffy or so-so 50%, but significantly past that to have earned enough information to move on. Always waiting until you're 100% ready with each and every move might just cost you the entire game.

So move on.

Gather feedback along the way.

Iterate as you go.

Make mistakes.

Learn from them.

Keep the train running.

Gain momentum.

There is no such thing as perfect. We're all just figuring it out as we go, and if we stop at every junction to double, triple check that everything's polished to a sheen, someone, somewhere might, can, or will beat you to it.