I figured that since this is the one of the biggest problems here, or just about anywere, there should be a thread on how you might go about stop stopping so much.
One might be to just half-finish your project, and on the next one, finish it 60%, and your next 70%, until you get 100%.
Or just sit down and do it. It’s usualy doing it the next day that is hard.
Any more tips?
projects are never finished, they are abandoned
Divide your project into phases and keep working regardless how you may feel. If you only work on it when you feel like it you may lose interest and never finish. I am guilty of this as well.
You nicked that from midgetmike’s sig
You nicked that from midgetmike’s sig[/quote]
That’s sort of what I was thinking (except it’s missing “Blender” at the beginning). It’s true, though, except for project Orange.
You nicked that from midgetmike’s sig[/quote]
“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” ~Paul Valéry
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
The quote same is also attributed to Oscar Wilde.
I don’t know which of these quotes are real but we can be pretty sure that someone has said it before midgetmike. 
As for finishing work, I hardly ever get anything finished. 
Join the club…oh, wait, you’re already registered here 
personally i think someone just gets burnt out on a project, and abandones it(pardon the quote stealing again)
i know this is the case with me. i just get tired of whatever problem im at.
and thats what it is. a blender project is just one problem after another. and we learn to fix each of those problems as we progress through the project. if someone wouldn’t get tired of fixing problems, maybe people would finish stuff sooner.
maybe its because blender is free, therefore if you never really finish anything, it doesnt really matter because you never paid any money for the software.
im not saying blender being free is wrong. just that maybe thats one reason people are lazy and never finish stuff.
because you see alot more finished projects with other softwares(because they want to get their money’s worth)
thats my $0.02
^ Does that statement extend to warezed programs? 
(Note that that’s wrong and I don’t encourage it)
As for projects, I don’t think of Blender projects as such – it’s more an issue of how much you’re willing to play with a given idea – sometimes (in my case, at least) that might mean getting half a model done, and then saying “Ah, screw this, I have exams and stuff” and sometimes it means modeling, texturing, rendering, post-processing and uploading, with each phase including something new, such as trying out a new feature, a new lighting rig, new camera settings, new effects or new MySQL statements. It also includes the option of quitting at any moment, and trusting guilt and self-esteem to make me open up and “finalising” old projects.
/$0.02
I heard that for the first time from an architect.
You nicked that from midgetmike’s sig[/quote]
That’s sort of what I was thinking (except it’s missing “Blender” at the beginning). It’s true, though, except for project Orange.[/quote]
Wait, you mean we have to finish? Hm, that’s going to upset my plans a bit…
You nicked that from midgetmike’s sig[/quote]
That’s sort of what I was thinking (except it’s missing “Blender” at the beginning). It’s true, though, except for project Orange.[/quote]
Wait, you mean we have to finish? Hm, that’s going to upset my plans a bit…[/quote]
Eek! rushes to edit his post
Pretend I said “except for project orange, which will be only 90%+10% finished”
I think Nephets nailed it perfectly.
I just tend to lose interest or motivation on a project. Its one problem after another, eventually one will get to you.
Huh, I generally fail at the start. I get an idea and sit for a few hours in front of my PC trying to decide how to start. Then I think screw this, go out and get drunk :-?
Been starting to model a pagoda for the last 3 days 
I think that a good way to finish a project is actualy to plane it before starting with blender, and then stick to it until the end.
for animation, just don’t think in over things, that the fase in you are; if you are still writting the script, don’t think about the art concept or about how you will animate a scene; also, don’t go to the next fase until having finished the one you are, that is, don’t start modeling before you have all the storyboard made -as an example-. (if you follow that rule you will never have to come back to re-tweak the script/model/texture/…; because having to come back to a fase that you have already made is one of the resons of abandoning a project); I don’t mean that since you have the script you should’t change it; Im just saying that if you will go to re-write a part; that should be because the fase you are in, required it. (for example if you have planned a scene that you realize now that it would not be easy or possible to make)
saying that, I must confess that I don’t always finish my projects, but generaly the ones that I leave behind, are those that I don’t have planned well, before beginning in Blender.
Just a last tip: don’t start a project that will require tools that you still have to learn;
that is, don’t think to make an animation if you don’t know how to rig or how to make a UVmap; or don’t try to make scene in yafray with caustics if you don’t know how to use a photon lamp.
A good way to that is to define some time in the day (or week) in front of blender that is just to learn more, and to try new features; and then define other time in the day/week to focus on projects and use tools that you already master.
that’s my 0.02$
I completely disagree. All the projects I’ve ever done have involved some things I didn’t know how to do. That’s the best way to learn - you won’t get the necessary experience if you are trying to learn tools and features in a totally theoretical way! You have a problem you need to solve, and you do what it takes to make it work, and learn something in the process. And if it’s not perfect in the end, too bad! Move on and make the next one with the new knowledge you’ve gained.
BTW: Related to the topic, deadlines help.
Deadlines. I rarely “finish” projects unless I set deadlines for myself and stick to them. With time, you’ll get better at estimating how long things take to do.
Oh, and an over all “I’ll be done with the whole project by this date” is almost never good enough unless it’s an extremely simple project. You need to have other deadlines, like for when you’ll finish a specific model, get this piece of character animation done, etc.
The main reason deadlines work is because, as was said before, you never really “finish”. So deadlines keep you moving. Even if the current part of the project you’re working on isn’t done to the quality you would like, you have to move on to the next part because you hit the deadline, and so on.
Another thing that helps get projects done is cheating. Find ways to fake things or cheat things. Don’t do things the “right way” just for its own sake. Just do what you have to to get it done. Be result oriented.
EDIT:
Heh heh… just read broken’s post above. Yeah, deadlines.
I completely disagree. All the projects I’ve ever done have involved some things I didn’t know how to do. That’s the best way to learn - you won’t get the necessary experience if you are trying to learn tools and features in a totally theoretical way! You have a problem you need to solve, and you do what it takes to make it work, and learn something in the process. And if it’s not perfect in the end, too bad! Move on and make the next one with the new knowledge you’ve gained.[/quote]
I totally agree, that’s how I learned blender. Also, assign how many hours each day you work on it is good along with the deadlines. Blind modelling is usually the cause of abandonement with me.
When you have no deadline, that’s exactly what you will meet.*
Hope that makes sense in english. You must set yourself a deadline and stick to it. period.
I also agree to Nehpets statement. Back in the days when I was warezing games for example, I never finished one. Now that I pay money, I finish every game I buy. Same must apply to other software.
For germans, my former boss used to tell me that :):
Wenn Du kein Ziel hast, wirst es auch erreichen.
For me it always helps, seeing the first rendered results of my project.
So, although i know it would be better to first model everything, then texture, then set up lighting and so on, i usually first finish off one object of my scene completely (including texturing and so on) and then do the rest of the scene.
Even if i have to redo most of that first object, because it doesn’t fit into the scene anymore. I just need the motivation, and first results are good for that.