How to Finish Everything You Start: Understanding the Causes of the Unfinished Epidemic, Its Cures, and When Choosing Not to Finish Is Okay

By: Jan Yager

Narrated by: Gale Cruz

Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

This practical business book by an internationally acclaimed time management expert helps listeners understand why they're not finishing projects and what to do about it, including using Dr. Yager's unique F-I-N-I-S-H technique. It also goes beyond a "do this, not that" approach to help you develop a deeper insight into what you should be committing to in the first place!

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Causes", begins with a provocative chapter entitled "The Epidemic of Unfinished Everything and Its Consequences." Chapter 2 explores 21 behaviors, beliefs, and bad habits that might be at the root of not finishing. The remaining chapters in this part explore specific causes of unfinished tasks including "Having Too Much to Do at Once", "Dealing with Procrastination", and "Having an Unrealistic or No Deadline".

Part 2, "Cures," probes such remedies as "Using F-I-N-I-S-H", "To-Do Lists That Work", "Learning to Say No", and more.

Part 3, "Additional Thoughts and a Conclusion", includes a chapter entitled "The Exception That Proves the Rule: When Failing to Finish is a Good Thing" as well as the chapter "Summing Up", with pivotal examples and information to help you finish everything you start.

A selected bibliography with a list of cited works, resources section, and appendix of useful supporting materials complete this time-saving book that will help you to get more done.

How to Finish Everything You Start is based on Dr. Yager's 3+ decades of research on time management plus new interviews and surveys focusing on finishing with more than 242 men and women from throughout the United States and internationally.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. (P)2018 Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc.

Informative and interesting

Good information about improving completing tasks. Center of the materials were going into writing quite a bit. Still good though.

Don’t waste your time

The author didn’t provide anything useful. Basically just hours of her talking about herself and important people she’s knows. Not only a waste of money but the bigggest waste of time.

I had trouble finishing it ;-)

I kept hoping that this book would move past the Jan Yager infomercial/basic information stages and finally get to some real solid tips. It never did. So while I'm happy to report that I DID finally finish this audiobook - I can't say that anything I heard here will help me in the real world.

What we did learn a lot about was Ms Yager - the books she's written, her career, her personal struggles, how brilliant she is, etc. We also learned how to tell if we have problems finishing things - she points out our short comings NUMEROUS times. Dear Ms Yager - if we bought the book....we KNOW WE HAVE A PROBLEM. We didn't come to you for a diagnosis.

This whole book feels like it was written for one reason - to write a book. Ms Jager isn't a productivity expert. She's an academic (as we are told often). She was either given this as an assignment by her publishing house or she decided she needed to write a book and drew the topic out of a hat. This is NOT a helpful book.

One of the parts that really stuck with me was when she said that she sat down and listed all her "to-dos" and can up with 17 unfinished items and was shocked that she had that many? 17? Seriously? This is a woman that does not live in the real world. I get 17 new things every day here in the real world.

This book might work ok in the academic world or for some new writers (for whom she commits and entire chapter) but this book will not help you at all if you live and work in the business world.

Perfect finishing tool

I'm an author that has had a hard time staying motivated enough to complete my second book. Dr. Jan Yager's book "How To Finish Everything You Start" has given me hope. The book lays out easy to follow steps, that guide you through the process of attaining your goal of finishing what you've started, not just how to fix the problems, but discussing why they exist and how to avoid them in the future.

The book tackled the nuances and causalities of overcoming procrastination, time management issues, and distractions that have unknowingly plagued me for years. This book is an outstanding tool for all of us who welcome suggestions on how to get more done by finishing what we've started, and even when it's okay to not finish but for the right reasons!

Solid tip for productivity

Worth the read. Would I say that this book is revolutionary, not exactly. But it is an excellent amalgamation of a ton of key productivity points. Jan organizes her points clearly and succinctly, and each recommendation builds off the last.