I start things with ridiculous enthusiasm, & then just forget or abandon them.

At some point I realized I was carrying around this label in my head:

“I don’t do hard things.”
“I have potential but I don’t do the hard work.”

If you’ve felt this, you know how much these labels hold you back.

So I added a page.

A page that functions like social pressure- but aimed at me.

What it is

The Anti-Flake Page is a running log of things I start, and whether I finish them.

It has 3 states:

• In Progress- things I’m actively working on
• Paused- things I’m not touching right now (but I’m not pretending they don’t exist)
• Completed- finished / shipped (with proof)

And it has a few yearly counters (because my brain responds to numbers):

• Shipped
• Learned
• Health
• Life

Small wins count. A lot.

Because “I finished something” is the muscle I’m trying to build.

The rules (so I actually finish)

I’m borrowing three ideas from behavioral science and turning them into rules for this page:

1) Make quitting annoying (commitment device)

This page only works if I keep it honest:

• Max 5 items in progress per category.¹ If it’s full, I finish something before adding anything new.
• Pausing is allowed- but it stays visible. No pretending it didn’t happen.
• Completed needs a receipt- a link, a date, a commit, a published post. Something that exists.

The reward loop is simple:

do work -> move it to Completed -> brain gets a dopamine checkmark.

2) When it gets hard, do 10–15 more minutes

My brain tries to bail right when it turns uncomfortable.

So I use a rule:

• If I’m about to quit, I continue for 10–15 minutes.

Most of the time, that’s enough to get over the hump.
And once I’m moving, I often finish the session anyway.

The Anti-Flake Page is here: /anti-flake/

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1. Unfortunately capable of starting 10 things at once. ↩