Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a muscle that you can take to the gym.
This advice is the equivalent of going for a run one day and never picking up the habit. I don't think it will lead to fitness.
SOFA gets one thing right which is it reduces the pressure and the expectations. But it doesn't seem like an approach to life which results in anything permanent. This post literally says "nothing is permanent, nothing lasts" which is a nihilistic and self-defeating view of life - perhaps technically true but not useful. Contrast with "play long term games" which is the idea that good things compound over years and even decades and this compounding is how you can lead a truly extraordinary life.
So with Clear's concept of minimum viable habits the focus is on building something permanent (the habit) but the expectations are removed, which makes it feel easy. If you want to be a runner, you start by setting an alarm and putting on your running shoes every day. That's it, once the shoes are on, you declare victory and you may take them right back off again and go on with your day, running is strictly optional (and even discouraged at the start).
After doing this for a while it's going to be second nature. It will become an unconscious habit to put on those shoes at the same time every day, and it will also feel a little ridiculous that you're not even stepping out the door. It will then feel completely natural to take the next step and walk outside and enjoy the fresh air as part of the habit. Once you're doing that regularly, it's almost inevitable that you'll start taking a small walk or something and one day boom you've made it a jog. Three years later if it's really what you want you've become a serious runner and practicing for your first marathon.
It really works in my experience (it got me going to the gym, improved my work productivity and improved my diet). The key is your perspective: you want to build an extensive new, permanent habit that will improve your life for many years to come. But this is hard to do so you're layering on one easy piece at a time, removing the friction.
It doesn't require manning up and being superhuman. Just the desire for the change, some patience and the willingness to take the first step.
I like open source software. And I could write some code that works for me, then generalise it to be useful to more people, then increase the robustness so it's easier for users who aren't the author, then clearly document it, then make a flashy website for it, then do branding and marketing to get users, then add support for OSes I don't use and languages I don't speak, then build a community of contributors and maintain a presence on reddit and twitter and stackoverflow and discord and github and mailing lists, then engage with the community with polite professionalism at all times, then do paperwork like choosing a license and a code of conduct and a security policy, then convince major distributions to package it, then maintain it for 30 years.
So long as it's a recreational hobby, I'll do whichever steps I feel like. Marketing? Support? Fundraising? Test coverage? Nah, I don't think I will, I'd rather spend that time going on a bike ride.
On the other hand, for things that aren't a recreational hobby? That might be a different matter.
I can assure you that, in spite of not really mastering or finishing any of these things and being kind of flaky about it, it has at least lead to very good fitness.
In the same vein, I see no reason you can't simply practice and get in the habit of learning and being curious even if you never master a specific craft.
That's not true, at least not for many procrastinators. I've been a procrastinator my whole life. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I found a method that made me productive (going from 2-3 hours of work a day to 9-10 hours). Honestly, when it comes to productivity, I’m killing it. However, it hasn’t trained my "finish it" muscle at all. As soon as I'm not body doubling, I revert to my old self and immediately start procrastinating.
> You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And "done" can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is.
If you already say the goal is fitness, you're not doing SOFA. The whole point is to accrue experience, experiment, discover, not a predefined state. You don't SOFA a specific sport to lose weight, you SOFA when you want to find a sport you like enough that you will be able to do it regularly.
Lately, I envy my better half who reads all books from start to finish, and also manages to be very consistent in teaching specific things to our children. This is Doing More With Less in practice -- in the long run, children obviously benefit more from that as compared to inconsistent creative bursts that I (currently) represent. Order is much harder to accomplish than mess; I think ultimately, good learning = keeping order, and being consistent about what not to do.
(I do remember Nassim Taleb advocating to read books "ADDHD-style", as in, swapping right away when you feel bored, though. And he is quite good with his probability stuff, so threre's that. Also, I quite like Perl and Larry Wall's views on the inherent messiness of human language -- I think he is spot-on with this. But... as a layperson, it's nonetheless way too easy to get lost inside this mindset. Managing complexity is an art, I guess. Or, as somebody once wrote on the Perlmonks forums, "freedom is hard".)
Unfortunately, the "why" isn't always clear. I've been procrastinating for as long as I can remember, and as a co-founder of a body doubling platform, you'd think I'd know why I procrastinate. But I don't. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, and it's still a mystery to me. I'm a hedonistic procrastinator, but I don't fully understand what's behind it.
Back to the point: if you're looking for a solution, don't blindly try every method someone suggests, as it can be a colossal waste of time. Some people spend weeks or months trying to make Pomodoro work for them, without realizing it simply won't. If you're a hedonistic procrastinator, Pomodoro probably isn’t the best fit. Similarly, people who struggle with clarity on what to do may benefit more from to-do lists than from "Just do it" approaches.
If procrastination is wreaking havoc on your life and you don’t know how to overcome it, feel free to contact me (check my bio). Disclaimer: I run a virtual body doubling platform (WorkMode.net), but I'm happy to talk and try to help, even if you don't want to try the platform.
i.e. Once I'm comfortable the remaining work can be accomplished by rote skill application, it feels more like a chore.
At this point, your "self" has changed. You have a new perspective and gains compared to when you embarked on your journey. You have a clearer picture of the sacrifices you require to continue making progress to your original goal. If you knew then what you know now, you would not have set such a terrible goal, though you would perhaps have targeted this halfway-point where you are now.
At this point, it is time to
> Just KonMari[4] that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it. There. Done.
In this case, and in the situations the article wants to address, this is perhaps the calculus at play, where it is not about willpower, but that with a change in environment, continuing would entail an unacceptable sacrifice for a goal that no longer has the same meaning it used to hold. Although I find it too absolute and unbalanced in it's opinion, as is yours.