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Summary

Knowing what to do may not be enough to keep going; switching organizational methods may miss the problem.
Short-task experiments with general-population students found lower performance in the middle than at the start and end.
Struggling to persist while still wanting to finish differs from deliberately ending a goal after evaluating it.

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Knowing a method does not mean being able to keep using it

Proposed in research

An adult self-report survey found that the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) group scored lower on most organizational skills. Only “use of organizational and study strategies” showed no clear difference(Durand et al., 2020).

The researchers proposed that the difficulty may lie in sustaining the use of existing strategies. When a method is already known but hard to keep using, switching tools or checklists may miss the problem(Durand et al., 2020).

Performance may dip below the start and end in the middle

Research-backed

In short-task experiments with students from the general population completing sequences of word puzzles and proofreading tasks, performance was lower in the middle than at the start and end. The researchers proposed that motivation does not always grow as a goal gets closer(Bonezzi et al., 2011).

A dip in the middle need not immediately mean a goal has lost its value.

Choosing to end a goal differs from wanting to finish but stopping

Proposed in research

A review of goal pursuit in the general population described both continued engagement and timely disengagement as important parts of effective self-regulation(Brandstätter & Bernecker, 2022).

Deliberately ending a goal after evaluating it differs from repeatedly stopping halfway while still wanting to finish. In the former case, finding more ways to persist may not be necessary.

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