When you begin a project it is important to know what "finished" looks like. Otherwise there is no way to know when you are done or track your progress.
Some projects are easy to define a finsh line for.
If you need to bake two dozen cupcakes for a pot-luck when you have 24 cupcakes ready to transport to the event your project is done.
Library projects are often large and unwieldy and it can be difficult to know where you are headed or how close you are to a successful finish. This is where a bit of mental time traveling is useful.
Let's say that the project you want to tackle is "the mountain of boxes of fishing and hunting books that a patron (Mr. Outdoors) donated to your library when he was cleaning out his attic last year." Right now this is a bunch of boxes that are piled in your workroom and are constantly in the way and make you feel guilty every time you see them because your patron's are often looking for books on these topics. Stop beating yourself up and envision the details of the ideal future for these boxes.
It might look like this: All the books donated by Mr. Outdoors are processed for circulation (including donation plates in the front covers thanking Mr. Outdoors for his generosity); are fully represented in the library's online catalog; an article about the donation has been published in the library's e-newsletter; and the empty boxes have been recycled so you can move around in the workroom again. (I know, there will probably be a new pile in your way by then, but this is an ideal future!). That is the finish line for a full processing of the donated materials.
However, the finish line you choose for the project you are tackling right now may be closer than that. Consider this possible future: All the boxes have been emptied and recycled and the workroom space is clear again; all the donated books have been sorted into groups for the booksale, and for cataloging (with a note on the to-catalog items that they need donation plates for Mr. Outdoors) and are put away in the normal locations for booksale items and materials-to-catalog.
These two definitions of "finished" involve very different amounts of work--and time--to get there.
Whichever definition of finished you decide on you will be able to recognize it when you get there. You will also have a destination to head for in your planning which can help prevent the project from getting totally out of hand.
Now that you know where you are going you can map out a plan to get there. I will talk about what that might look like in a future post.