How Do You Guys With a Zillion Projects Do It?

You know who you are- you have at least a half dozen "slow burn" projects in various states of completion around, you make progress on some, sell others, buy more, etc.  Somehow, you seem to be ok with this, whether its' because you're some sort of zen master or just don't care about finishing them or you manage to forget they exist until you trip over them, or... I don't know.  There seem to be a number of you guys here.

I'm typically a "one project at a time" sort of person.  I'm good at plowing full speed ahead in that one project, but at the same time I can't stop thinking about the damn thing until its' at least driveable- right now, for example, the rally car is occupying the lift, our regular cars need some basic maintenance, and one of my motorcycles needs a pretty minor repair... and I am losing my berkeleying mind because I can't get enough of it done fast enough for my liking even though I throw three full days at it every week.  When it's just one project it's fine, I love having a puzzle that I'm always working on, but add even the most minor stuff on the other vehicles and it becomes unpleasant. 

Are you (many project guys) and I just fundamentally different?  Or is there something you're doing that I'm not doing that makes you better at relaxing and giving things time?  Or are you, like me, unable to put your mind off it and perpetually thinking about all of them?

I dislike and am stressed by multiple projects concurrently over about 2 at a time. So I hit a stress limit and sell a bunch of crap. Then I slowly buy more and more till I hit the stress limit.

Rinse and repeat.

It's not really a great thing, but I can sorta stem my project buying by knowing this about myself.

I have hobby projects and treat them accordingly. Also a 3 year old and a 1 year old that doesn't sleep through the night yet. When it hits 9:00pm and everyone is sleeping, I currently just want to sleep since I don't know if I'll be up from 1am to 4am with a baby girl that's teething and has a cold. There's no time to worry about project cars. Plus, I pay the dealership to do stuff on the family-mobile. I just don't have the time to do that kind of work. I might have 2-3 hour here or there, but if it's not done by then I can't afford to do it myself. Since having kids I think we broke past the more money than time threshold.

My problem is that I can't pass up a good deal. I really should sell 4 of my vehicles which would leave me with three projects. 

I'm completely frozen in the "I'll get to it eventually" phase of nearly every project.

So the few of you who can make progress on your projects, I tip my hat to you.

At this point, I think I'm going to sell all my tools, projects and parts off as I'll never make time or have the energy or ambition to do anything with it.

I only have 2 cars but an undriveable car doesn't bother me. Not having anything to drive on the street, or missing a competition because of an undriveable car bothers me. Maybe if I had more I would reach some threshold and get fed up.

I also have many non-automotive (usually computing or electronics) projects that sometimes sit in the "I'll get to it eventually" phase for years. Usually because they involve a problem which must be fixed all at once due to space or uptime constraints, so I have trouble allocating a monolithic block of time in which to study up on the problem and fix it.

For the married guys, you do the ones that the wife wants done first before you touch anything else.  

If I had the space I'd probably have a hundred projects.  I just don't let it stress me too much.  I so want to buy that $300 Jetta/Bora on CL and do something rear wheel drive with it.  Then today I was in a foreign country,  Arlington Va I think it's called and had to pull into the service station to see if the 2 door Chevette was for sale - sadly no.   It helps that I can walk to and from work, take an Uber or any one of dozens of cabs if I'm tired/lazy.  A co-worker got stranded and missed his shift because he fixes his only daily - a Passat - he lives in the burbs and in that scenario I'd have a lease. 

Think of them as driveway art.  You look at the sculptures, if they bring a smile that is enough.  Any time they actually move, that is just gravy on top.

Have projects of different sizes and a whiteboard. I put a list of what each car needs on the whiteboard so I can say "okay, I'll do that today". 

But occasionally one gets an override and all others must wait. The engine in our Westfalia, for example. All else must yield. 

I am also guilty of too many vehicles.  

I usually start promising things to others, or offering to let them borrow things. Things that are still in project state, so then I have to finish it so I can help someone out. 

But I'm absolutely terrible at buying parts to fix things then never actually fixing them. It's raining, it's snowing, I have this I can use instead, I have to go do something else, just excuse after excuse until I finally give it up and get rid of it. 

Occasionally though, I'll go through extreme bouts of insomnia where I won't be able to fall asleep for close to a week, and that's when I get the majority of things done. When everything else in the house is gone or asleep , about the third hour of staring at the ceiling in the dark I'll finally quit trying and go work on something to try to wear myself down. 

Currently with 4 cars, 3 are running and driving.  When a second car goes down I get nervous, so the impetus is to get everything operational (right now the monster miata), before tearing into the suspension of the Passat (the next, non-motorsport  project).

More money and space would probably yield more projects but for now this is my comfort zone.

I'm with the OP on this one- I get easily overwhelmed and stressed when there are too many irons on the fire. Matter of fact I think I'm starting to learn that even a single larger project can feel stressful at times, mostly because of the unknown expenditure of money needed to get it to a point where it is mobile and enjoyable, or usable and sellable. I like the wrenching and figuring process, but the financial unknowns of that portion often stress me out. The scale of some of the builds on here is incredible to me, and I love following along, but at this point in my life I'm not ready for something like that. Someday. 

Here's the one that really turns me off of a project lately - parts availability. On the Shart the tail lights were NLA, the only ones I found were NOS stuff and they were $700, which was almost more than I paid for the car. That type of stuff turns me off real quick, I start to think about what happens if I park somewhere and somebody bumps it, etc etc. I really admire some of the builds on here for their willingness to take on FAR more rare stuff than a 60's Mopar.  

TLDR; The unknowns are scary! 

How do we handle a million projects?  Some of us don't.

Im space limited since i live in town with a single car garage. I downsized from 11 cars at varying stages of project too my zephyr, the wifes car and whatever winter beater i buy. Its helped alot with keeping me focused and actually being able to enjoy my project.

My dads new property has a barn i can store things in so its getting harder to pass up a good deal!

I absolutely NEED to be able to shift focus to remain mentally healthy. I can't push through things. I have to let them sit and stew until I get the time or money or inspiration to move forward on them. At the same time, I can't sit still, so I need something else to pour my energy into while I'm waiting. I actually have a harder time dealing with projects that are done, or don't really need anything. Ferdinand makes sense, the truck needs 1000 hours of learning and work and writing to get on the road and I love it even if I haven't touched it for a month. My truck? It needs gas tomorrow, and that feels pointless in the face of having at least five other cars in the driveway that run and drive. 

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

i think you are mistaking "slow burn" projects with lawn art. 

I'd get them all confused so the smaller the amount of projects the better for me. 

In my situation I have a number of "slow burn" projects going on at any point in time and one "HOT" project on the front burner at all times. The "hot" project (most of the time) will hit some kind of snag (money, material, tool, information..) that will cause the hot project to grind to a halt this is when I shift gears to one of the slow burn project's.

I kind of like this as it gives me a chance to do something different and time to think about the hot project. Perhaps another reason this doesn't bother me is this is normal work day, jumping from one thing to the next with no clue what tomorrow holds.

Paul B

I get overwhelmed and cry.

Like others, usually when I reach that point, I tend to clear out at least one or two things.  I’m at that point right now, but so far am unwilling to purge anything yet, which is odd for me because there is no room for my daily driver in the driveway, it has to go in the street. I think I’m holding out because I’ll have an open garage bay soon.  The time to start clearing out projects (at least for me) is when there is no room to get anything done without spending 15-30 minutes clearing out space to work every time you want to make any progress.  

Okay, the other time is when stuff is going to sit outside and deteriorate if you don’t have time to get to it.  I’ve promised myself I’m not going to be that guy who lets something perfectly restorable rust into worthlessness because I’m going to get to it “someday”.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I absolutely NEED to be able to shift focus to remain mentally healthy. I can't push through things. I have to let them sit and stew until I get the time or money or inspiration to move forward on them. At the same time, I can't sit still, so I need something else to pour my energy into while I'm waiting. I actually have a harder time dealing with projects that are done, or don't really need anything. Ferdinand makes sense, the truck needs 1000 hours of learning and work and writing to get on the road and I love it even if I haven't touched it for a month. My truck? It needs gas tomorrow, and that feels pointless in the face of having at least five other cars in the driveway that run and drive. 

Quoted for truth.

If I was forced to work through a project to completion, it would take all the fun out of it. I would hate the thing. Instead I have 6-10 in the works at all times. Not all of them cars. I'll work on one till I get bored or stuck, and move on to something else.

SanFord the only massive project I have going at the moment, and it got shoved to the bottom of the list. There are a couple of major decision to make that will change the direction the project progresses. It's stalled until I make up my mind. Then there will be a flurry of activity. It will still take me years to finish it, if I ever do. 

A finished project is the saddest thing I can imagine. The journey is much more fun than the finished product. The Jet Boat is done. It's been sitting on the trailer for 6 months, untouched. The Samurai is done. I haven't driven it in 3-4 months. 

One of those Alaska reality shows the guy said he hasn't finished the design of his house because last time he did that with a house his first wife up and left him. 

I stack up a couple future projects as they pop up.  I try and have only one big project and one challenge car going at one time.  Unfortunately that means if something turns itself into a project I either abandon it for a few years out of sadness or have to drop everything else and get it fixed.  If I get burned out I’ll move on to a future project and get something done to make it easier, then hop back to the main concern.  I’m ready to sell my impala if i can find a buyer for it as a roller because I want to put the ls1 into the $2018 car.  Plus, it’s pretty worthless to me as I refuse to put it in the road salt and the WRX is more fun.  I’m trying to move towards quality over quantity, and have been doing better with that.  The Devin threw a wrench into the works but it’s a resto project that I don’t  intend to get to for 5+ years and I absolutely had to buy it.  

My wife is an enabler, so it really makes it hard to not buy everything she shows me.  

Donebrokeit said:

In my situation I have a number of "slow burn" projects going on at any point in time and one "HOT" project on the front burner at all times. The "hot" project (most of the time) will hit some kind of snag (money, material, tool, information..) that will cause the hot project to grind to a halt this is when I shift gears to one of the slow burn project's.

I kind of like this as it gives me a chance to do something different and time to think about the hot project. Perhaps another reason this doesn't bother me is this is normal work day, jumping from one thing to the next with no clue what tomorrow holds.

 

 

Paul B

This is me. At least until I run out of drivable cars. Then i panic and lose sleep. 

Currently i have 4 of my own projects, and am heavily involved with 5 others. 

The HOT project is the challenge car with dad. Second is duster. Third is getting some petty things fixed on the elky so i can rip the trans out of my daily while driving the elky.....

Sometimes it gets very overwhelming. I make a triage list, and get the worst of it done. Daily is always on top at that point. Second is least amount of time/money to have a backup, and so on.

Hence the reason the duster has been down for years