[CHAT] How do you just start working on something?

How do you motivate yourself to get started? I’m not talking about starting a whole new project, that’s easy - a little too easy for a lot of people including me - but getting out a WIP and putting a dent in it.

The hardest thing about xstitch for me sometimes is simply just picking a project out of my stash and getting some stitches in. Sometimes it’s exhausting just thinking about the setup process of getting it in a hoop/frame, clamping it to the stand, getting the floss and supplies, loading the needle, and then finding where to start… Only to realize something is in the way of progress like I didn’t put the right area of the design into the hoop so I have to start over.

But once the actual process starts, I can really fly and put 500 stitches in a project and feel like no time had passed. And then I’m like, that wasn’t so bad, all I had to do was just get started. Getting into a groove after the initial start is where the fun is, but man the startup process is so tedious that sometimes I think of trying to slowly convert to monogamous stitching (or like 3 or less projects) so I won’t have to switch projects so much from feeling “guilty” that they’re not all getting enough attention.

But then once a project hits somewhere between 50-80% I suddenly hate the project and I’m like??? I wish there was a pill to alter my brain’s feelings toward a project as it progresses. The same happens with crochet lol.

For one of my projects, I finally took it out last night after a longgg time of me repeatedly going “I’ll think about it tomorrow” and checked my progress history in Saga. Apparently I’ve been thinking about it tomorrow since February 2024 💀 and I hadn’t touched it in a year. I did the math and if I had just put 26 stitches a day - not even a full strand length that I use on the fabric count of that project - it would have been finished by now. Or if I worked on it for 5 hours a week, it would have been done in under 2 months. It helps that I can easily color-complete for the most part so it goes quickly.

I see a lot of people on Flosstube mark a planner with a whole schedule with rules, like “work on x at least twice this month, work on y on Wednesdays and Saturdays, you can only buy new patterns once something has reached 50% or 100% completion…” And they actually get a lot done. If only I was this disciplined lol, has anyone got a system they’d like to share?

One mindset, ig you could call it, I’m trying to adopt is realizing that having this hobby to the degree I do (I will never finish the stash I have in my lifetime) is really a privilege and I could be in the jungle foraging for food or working in a sweatshop, but instead I’m cozy in my room making silly little pictures with needle and thread. Once I let that sink in, I feel like seizing the opportunity fully.

Another thing that's helped a LOT is leaving thread loaded on the needle and parked so that I'm motivated to pick it up next time with one less step to do.