What level Is Your "ISM"?

[chambezio]

Weird title, I agree. I have a good mate who like me was put out to pasture well before retirement age. He has Bi-polar. I have Major Depression. He is the one who invented the "ISM".
He finds it really difficult to muster enough enthusiasm to start a project and see it through in a reasonable amount of time. What usually happens is he starts, then as the project is gaining momentum he stops/slows, and maybe start another totally unrelated project that ends up about at the same unfinished level as the first project.

I do exactly the same thing!!

I am wondering what others may do to get the "ISM", go with it, and turn out a project in a good time with out any distractions.

About 4-5 years ago I wanted to make a wide drum sander similar to the Sand Flea. I started with the manufacture of the drum and was happy with the way that part went. I then moved onto the frame using 32 mm RHS, mounted the motor and drum, started on the platform the carry the timber being sanded....ran out of ISM and the thing sat idle for 2 or more years. By the time I got to that stage I had decided that I should add a pivoted platform with a conveyor belt to pull the timber past the drum there by making a "thickness sander". Well that took another couple of years to do so I got the revamped thing up and running not long before Christmas last year.

I did do a lot of other little things at the same time but was in a state of frustration with myself because I wasn't properly finishing them. We have a great nut and bolt/bearing shop in town. You can go in there, not knowing what you may need to get "A" to connect with "B", but come out with a plastic bag with what ever it is that you need. That plastic bag may get put on the bench and not even looked at for weeks because the ISM isn't there.

Who else does the same OR am I the only one?

[DavidG]

Snap....

[chambezio]

Here is another example of lack of ISM....2 Christmases ago my daughter and I laid a concrete garden edge around the fences of her house block in town. Wood chips were to be spread between the edge and the fence......not done yet (and I am ashamed). We had tea with her last night when she reminded me that she is still waiting

[Sawdust Maker]

don't let SWMBO see this thread

[BobL]

Same result but perhaps opposite reason i.e. too much enthusiasm too easily distracted.

When I start a project I get easily distracted, I'll start and then find I need X, look on line, "there's no way I'm paying that for X", so I look around to see how I can make, acquire X another way. While making or looking for X I discover I need Y, or Z turns up out of the blue (totally unrelated to X or Y) and I have to fiddle with Z. Before I know it I have forgotten about X or Y and I sometimes find myself 10 levels in and might never get back to Y let alone X.

This drives SWMBO barmy as she is very end product focussed.

For me, project success is determined as much as by how interesting voyage has been, as the production of any end products.

[chambezio]

If you have it then you wouldn't be on here you would be out there making shavings and only come inside when starvation takes hold.

I have tried to get a 44 gallon drum of from the hardware store but they keep telling me its on back order.

Bob, I do a lot of what you do. I'll get on to Ebay and troll and troll looking for ??? what was it....ah, but I need one of them....and so it goes on. Projects get stalled and even forgotten about.

[Kuffy]

I can start well enough most times and just cruise through the jobs start to finish. But if anything goes wrong and changes a simple task into a bloody repair job I get irritated pretty quick and come back inside and surf the net...3 minutes ago I just realised I have put some insert nuts in the exact location of an inlay butterfly dovetail key!!!!!!!

so i'm on break for the rest of the arvo

[KBs PensNmore]

You've the same gremlins I have, my complete metric set gone, never to be seen again.
I must be in the same boat, keep losing my motivation at certain stages of a project, then start another, part way through start another, find a part, go back 2 projects and do a bit more on it. Have about 8-9 on the go ATM, some waiting on parts, some waiting on the shed extension.
Kryn

[Chris Parks]

Isn't this ISM just normal behaviour? I do it all th time so it must be. I recently put a wheel that I bought twenty years ago on the wheel barrow and I am not kidding either.

[BobL]

On Saturday SWMBO showed me two short pieces of skirting board leaning up against the fireplace in the spare bedroom that I said I would attach back in 1994.

One day I will surprise her and fix them!

[A Duke]

On Saturday SWMBO showed me two short pieces of skirting board leaning up against the fireplace in the spare bedroom that I said I would attach back in 1994.

One day I will surprise her and fix them!

When a husband says he will do some thing, he will do it, he does not need his wife to remind him every six months.

[BobL]

Proof that procrastination is a winner.

About 6 months ago I lost the only remote locking key I had for my HiAce van.
The plastic loop on the key fob by which the key was attached to my key ring had broken so I was carrying my key around in my pocket.

I thought I might have lost it at the mens shed on the day I went there with SWMBO's car or at the Shopping centre I went to after that.
No luck.

Turned the house upside down - no luck.
I said it might still turn up so I won't rush out just yet to get another because I had a spare manual key so I could still drive and lock the vehicle.

Anyway a couple of months later no luck and I resigned myself to getting another key at great expense but I kept procrastinating and sure enough yesterday SWMBO found the key on the floor in a place where I should have seen it easily enough if I had looked carefully.

SWMBO accused me of a "little boy's look" and I blame the robot vacuum cleaner.

[chambezio]

Chris, the main reason I started this ISM thing was to see if it is "normal" or not. I don't see many people any more (we live a bit of a hermit's life) so I have very little to guage it on. I was working with a couple of upholsterers years ago. I got them to do a "foreigner" for me by making up some vinyl pads for a couple of stools. That took 20 plus years to attach them to the stool frames.

Bob, I lost 2 complete sets of keys to the Landcruiser, from gate pad lock, house key and a few more.....twice!!! with in 4 weeks. Still haven't found either of them!!

Another damned annying thing I do repeatedly is, I will be making something that needs to be welded then drilled then another operation.....between apparatus I will lose what I am working on. Just can not see it....in really bad cases I have gone to the house dragged out wifey to find the article that I can't find after I describe it to her she says "this thing?". It was right under my nose the whole time but I was blind to it.
Its interesting how we all seem to be doing pretty much the same thing without telling each other. So...it must be "normal behaviour".
Maybe I wish I wasn't normal so I don't have to go through the whole ISM thing

[Handyjack]

I must be a fast worker.
Last year we had the toilet replaced. Two tiles above the new cistern had holes in them from the old cistern. Not a problem I'll replace them. Got the spare tiles, prepared them, got the adhesive and the grout removal tool and put the lot out side the toilet under the sink so I could do the job. 13, that's thirteen months later I finally did the job in about an hour and a half including grouting. Sure I did a lot of jobs for other people in between (and got paid for them) but for myself it took a long time.

[artme]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.... I thought there was more than one graduate from this school.

Aren't confessions cathartic???