Unfinished papers

Most of us academics have a few unfinished, unsubmitted papers that are gathering digital dust on our computers. Projects may have stalled, the writing never got finished, students may have moved on and left the last items pending, or we simply did not make finishing the paper a priority – there are a wide variety of reasons for which we may have unfinished papers.

My unfinished paper that has been simmering for the longest time was started in, I think, 2018. Yet, I have recently tried to go through the list of my papers and see which of the unfinished ones could be wrapped up, and how. Here’s what I will try (and I will report back later to see if it actually worked):

• Shove it off to someone else: OK, passing on my problem to someone else is probably not nice if we frame it like that – but what I am trying is to enlist a younger researcher who may have the time to finish the last tasks, wrap up the paper, and collaboratively finish the work.
• Adjust the scope: Maybe the paper is stalled because the scope was too ambitious. Maybe adjusting the scope will make it less daunting.
• Adjust the target journal: Similar to changing the scope, adjusting the target journal may be the way to go to make the pending task less intimidating.
• Put it on my calendar: Make time for it – sounds logical, but we often forget to do this.

Have you tried wrapping up unfinished papers at some point, and what worked?