Tuesday's Tips #14

If your anything like most crafters you probably have at least one work in progress (WIP) lying around. If your like me, and many others, we might be talking more like half a dozen to a dozen! They are just sitting there, taunting you, so now what?

WIP's aren't a bad thing in and of themselves. They happen for very legitimate reasons. Maybe you needed one more component to finish the piece, and your waiting for it to come in the mail, or a chance to go to the store. Or you got a custom order, so you had to put the piece aside to complete that. Don't get me wrong, custom orders help keep the money rolling in, but they get in the way of doing what you want some times don't they? Of course there are also the pieces that end up in the WIP pile because you are fed up with the piece, or simply not in the mood to do the last little "fiddly work" as one of my team mates put it.

Ok, so we all have those WIP's, what's next?

I'd challenge you to dip into that pile of WIP's once in awhile. Especially if your craft is also a business. If it's just for fun, it's not big deal, but if you sell your work every WIP represents a piece that could potentially make you money, and it can't reach that potential until you finish it!

I personally find it hard to get around to working on the WIP's. I have so many NEW ideas that it's hard to go back and finish up things that got put aside, not matter how legitimate the reason for putting it aside was. My first step in combating that is that I try not to put things in the WIP box in the first place. Unless I'm being faced with a deadline, I try really hard not to start a new piece until I've finished the old one. Sometimes I can't resist, so I make myself alternate between the two, but I try really hard not to abandon anything until its done!

So, next time you wrap up a project, before you start a new one, look in your WIP pile. Try to pull one thing out and finish it before you go onto your next project. You don't have to finish the whole pile, but get one thing done before you go on to your new idea! If you try and do this each time you finish a project, eventually you won't have a WIP pile :)

Well...at least until you get interrupted again :P I think it's just human nature for us to accumulate those WIP's from time to time. Or at least the artsy/crafty nature!