I read those maxims and there is one that surprised me: "Hire a psychotherapist".

What? Ok... I bring one from another context who IMO fits well here:

"The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything… That’s the whole point of good propaganda.

You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for.

Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about." Noam Chomsky

I think most people are not against hiring a psychotherapist, but at the same time many people don't actually do this. So it's not empty advice, in the same way that "get a good night's sleep" is excellent advice even if everyone agrees with it. Another one would be 'be a nice person'. The value is in the reminder, because clearly we often don't take it to heart. It reminds me a bit of the late David Foster Wallace's increasing emphasis on the value of 'basic truths' even if they seem cliche. They're still true, and we suck at living by them. So why not remind ourselves often of their value?

But perhaps your argument hinges on the assumption that 'hire a psychotherapist' is advice that diverts the attention from a more important issue. If that's the case, I'd like to hear what you think this might be.

Thanks for the David Foster Wallace, I doesn't know that guy, I will look deeper into it. Yep, I'm aware that those 'basic truths' are valuable and I don't say otherwise.

The Chomsky quote wasn't just about that psychotherapist maxim, it's that one that made me tilted.

These maxims sound to me like if the job is not done it's the worker who got a problem and need to change. I'm just trying to say that maybe it could be the nature of the work and how we see it.

For example I am one of those who have really a lot of never-ending-awesome-side-projects. I'm fine with it.

As soon as I realize that particular job is more fun 'not to be completed' but because it allows me to learn more, share with others, discover techniques and occasionally strange weird reasons (wage?)! The completion is just a social reward (and yeah maybe I often fear the 'what to do next' desert).

The path to completion is so much more valuable to me.

We need more maxims to realize all the small ignored ends on the ongoing projects. Sometimes an idea is cool because of one of those ends, which is already done, and it would be a shame (and a time loss) to force yourself to continue.

P.S: I don't preach a do-never-finish lifestyle, it needs personal balance.