The Question to Ask Yourself Every Time You Start a Project
A two-step system to end everything you do on the right note
Early in the pandemic, I started a podcast called The New Corner Office, featuring a short daily tip on how to work successfully from home. When I began this project, I assumed that it, and the pandemic, would be short-lived: Everyone would hightail it back to the office in a few months, and I’d adjust accordingly.
Then “two weeks to flatten the curve” stretched into months. Eventually, 200 episodes in, I realized I was going to need to make a conscious choice. In November, I decided to end the podcast with 2020, and I published my last episode — what I called “The New Corner Office Manifesto” — on New Year’s Eve.
The experience got me thinking about endings generally. Beginnings are sexy and fun and easy to get excited about. But whenever we start new projects, we should also be asking ourselves the question: “How will this end?”
There are two steps to the process.
Step 1: Schedule a checkup
In her book The Art of Gathering, event organizer and facilitator Priya Parker notes that “too many of our gatherings don’t end. They simply stop.” We’ve all been there. Things peter out. Book club gets harder to…
