There’s a certain kind of ache that comes with unfinished projects. Not the urgent kind that demands attention, but a quieter, persistent feeling—like something gently tapping on the edge of your thoughts, waiting to be remembered.
We all have them, don’t we? Ideas that once lit a spark in us, plans we sketched out with excitement, things we started with the best of intentions but never quite finished. Some drift away quietly. Others linger, tucked into folders, notebooks, or memory. And every so often, they whisper: “What if you came back to me?”
One of mine is a second YouTube channel I started called Casual Creators. I had such a clear vision for it. A space where the joy of making videos could be enough—no pressure to go viral or turn a profit. Just simple, creative fun. The series was called You Made Videos, and it was my way of celebrating the process rather than the outcome. I wanted to remind myself—and maybe others—that YouTube could still be a hobby. A playground. A place to learn, connect, and enjoy creating for its own sake.
I made eight videos. Then life, as it tends to do, shifted my focus. The channel has been quiet for nearly a year now. But I still think about it. Not with guilt, exactly—more with curiosity. Would I ever go back to it? Should I?
Maybe you have a project like that, too. Something you started with heart and hope, but couldn’t carry to the finish line. If so, I want to ask something that’s been sitting with me lately:
What if not finishing isn’t a failure, but part of the process?
What if the value of a project isn’t always in its completion—but in what it gave us while we were in it?
2. Reframing “Unfinished”
Somewhere along the way, we were taught that to be successful, a project must be completed. That progress should be linear. That crossing the finish line is the goal—and anything less is a kind of defeat.
But creativity doesn’t often work like that.
It moves in loops and spirals, in bursts of inspiration and long pauses of reflection. It revisits old ground. It waits for the right season. And sometimes, it leaves a trail of incomplete things—not because we failed, but because we grew.
When I look at my own creative life, many of the ideas that shaped me the most were never “finished” in the traditional sense. One example is my website, pixelpia.com. Over the years, it has worn many different faces—each reflecting where I was creatively at that moment. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I can look back at screenshots from different eras: early experiments with layout and structure, phases where I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted it to be, and moments when I thought, maybe this is the version that will stick.
pixelpia.com over the years
As you can see, between 2013 and 2018, I had a page that simply said the site was under re-design. Five years! That’s how long this idea had to sit and grow before I was ready to move on.
But it never really stayed the same for long. Each version taught me something. Each revision helped me find my voice. And now, it’s taken on a new form again—as PixelPia’s Perspective, a more intentional space where I can bring everything together: creativity, learning, reflection, and curiosity.
We don’t often talk about the quiet value of these in-between stages. But maybe we should. Because sometimes, the process itself is the reward—not just the polished result at the end.
There’s a kind of wisdom in letting projects live in their own rhythms. In allowing ourselves to begin something without knowing exactly where it will lead. And in recognizing that pausing, shifting, or even walking away doesn’t make the experience any less meaningful.
3. The Beauty of Evolving Work
There’s something quietly magical about picking up an old idea and seeing it with new eyes.
Have you ever done that? Opened a long-forgotten folder or notebook and felt that flicker of recognition—the spark that first drew you in, even if the path forward still isn’t clear?
Sometimes, a project that once felt stuck or scattered begins to make sense in a different season of life. The pieces fit together in a way they didn’t before. Not because the idea changed, but because you did.
I can’t count how many times I’ve stumbled across an old video idea, a rough blog draft, or even just a scribbled phrase—and felt something shift. What once felt unfinished suddenly feels like a beginning again.
Maybe you’ve experienced that too. A moment when something from the past quietly says, “I’m still here. I still matter.”
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: not all creative work is meant to be finished quickly. Some things grow alongside us. They wait until we’re ready to see them differently. And that doesn’t make them any less valuable—if anything, it makes them more meaningful.
So if you have something half-done, half-formed, or half-forgotten, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to revisit it. Not with pressure, but with curiosity. You don’t have to complete it. You don’t even have to share it. Just spend a little time with it. See what it has to say now.
Because some projects aren’t linear. They evolve, like we do. And sometimes, just spending time with an old idea is enough to bring it back to life.
4. Permission to Pause, Change, or Return Later
One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn—over and over, if I’m honest—is that stepping away from a project doesn’t mean I’ve failed. It just means I needed space.
That wasn’t always easy to accept. I used to hold onto this idea that once I started something, I had to see it through to the end. Anything less felt like giving up. But the more I’ve created, the more I’ve realized that our relationship with our work is just as dynamic as we are. It changes. It pauses. It sometimes veers off into a completely different direction than we planned.
And you know what? That’s not only okay—it’s natural.
When I look back at all the different projects I’ve started—YouTube series, lesson plans, blog drafts, half-built digital courses—I see a trail of experiments, not failures. Each one taught me something. Each one helped shape the way I think and create today. Even the ones I never shared.
In fact, while writing this very section, I found myself opening an old folder in my Google Drive—the one labeled “Courses.” It’s been there for years. Inside are outlines, scripts, slide decks… quiet beginnings of at least three different courses I planned to make. And reading through them now, I still feel a spark. They’re not finished, but they’re not forgotten either. Part of me still believes they’re worth creating.
They’ve been paused, not abandoned. And that small shift in thinking—paused, not abandoned—has made all the difference for me.
I want to remind you—because I often need to remind myself too—that our creativity doesn’t need to be efficient or impressive. It just needs to be ours. Messy, wandering, paused, restarted… that’s all part of it.
So if you’ve got something half-finished that you still think about, maybe it’s time to open that folder. Or maybe it’s time to say, “That was what I needed then.” Either way, it’s still part of your creative story.
Let’s stop measuring our creativity by how finished things are.
Let’s look at what they meant to us in the moment, what they helped us explore, and how they shaped the way we see things now.
5. Living Creatively, Not Perfectly
If there’s one thing I’ve learned—through my own projects, through all the starting and pausing and shifting—it’s this: unfinished doesn’t mean unworthy.
We’re surrounded by messages that celebrate the end result. The polished product. The launched project. The thing that’s been wrapped up, tied with a bow, and shared proudly. But for many of us, that’s not how creativity actually works.
Most of it happens in the in-between.
In the folders we haven’t opened in a while. In ideas that still feel a little too big or a little too early. In the things we start with energy and heart, then quietly step away from. Not because we’ve given up—but because something else called us for a while.
When I look back at those unfinished pieces I mentioned earlier—my Casual Creators channel, the old versions of my website, those half-developed courses—I don’t feel bad about them. Honestly, I still like them. I still see the person I was when I made them. And sometimes, when I revisit them, I feel that little tug again. Not pressure, just possibility.
And that, to me, is enough.
I want to remind you—because I often need to remind myself too—that our creativity doesn’t need to be efficient or impressive. It just needs to be ours. Messy, wandering, paused, restarted… that’s all part of it.
So if you’ve got something half-finished that you still think about, maybe it’s time to open that folder. Or maybe it’s time to say, “That was what I needed then.” Either way, it’s still part of your creative story.
Let’s stop measuring our creativity by how finished things are.
Let’s look at what they meant to us in the moment, what they helped us explore, and how they shaped the way we see things now.
So I’ll end with the same quiet question I asked at the beginning:
What if not finishing isn’t a failure, but part of the process?
Because honestly, I think it is.
I’d love to hear your thoughts—
Do you have a project that’s still with you, even if it’s sitting quietly in the background?
Feel free to share in the comments, or just take a moment to reflect on what it’s still teaching you.
