What is project graphomania?

I’m afraid of becoming a graphomaniac. But not in terms of writing (although sometimes that too), but in terms of projects. Let me explain:

There are people who really love launching projects, but don’t really love seeing them through to the end. Record two podcast episodes, get bogged down in the details, put it on pause, start a social media account, get obsessed with AI, stop running the account, start making games, remember three years later that there was this podcast, record one episode there and disappear again. And so on in circles.

Usually this creates an impression of activity, but the actual results turn out to be minimal. None of the abandoned ideas gets enough time to become anything noticeable. It’s a kind of project graphomania. Procrastination in the form of activity.

I notice this in other people — because it’s my own fear. Launching a bunch of projects, and then discovering a couple of years later that I was moving in all directions at once and ended up succeeding nowhere.

I comfort myself with the thought that without testing hypotheses, without trying new things, without closing down what isn’t working — you’ll never figure out what can actually be successful. And it all comes down to one detail.

The only difference between a graphomaniac and an entrepreneur is whether they draw any useful (!) conclusions from their projects. But it’s such a fine line that it’s very easy to miss it and step right over.