Finish the practical promise before polishing the story of how hard it was.

Difficulty is more interesting to describe than completion is. In most efforts there comes a point where the account of the struggle starts to stand in for the last unglamorous stretch of work, and telling it feels close enough to doing it that the difference blurs. Meanwhile the promise is still open.

If you are partway through something you said you would do, put the story down and finish the dull part first. The telling will be better afterward, and shorter.