When “I’ll Fix This Later” Stays Open

The hidden cost of leaving old assets in limbo

Denise Wakeman

Feb 18, 2026

∙ Paid

There’s a page on your website you keep meaning to update.

It works. But you wouldn’t write it that way today. So you leave it.

Here’s the harder truth:

You’re not stuck because your assets are weak. You’re stuck because you won’t mark them done.

This week is about what happens when “I’ll fix this later” becomes permanent.

The Open Loop You Keep Revisiting

You don’t abandon things.

You revise. Improve. Refine. That’s part of doing serious work.

But here’s the pattern I see repeatedly.

A sales page. A lead magnet. An About page. A core blog post.

You don’t delete it. You don’t commit to it. You keep it in make-do mode. And every few weeks, you reopen it. Not to relaunch it. Not to promote it. To adjust it.

That repetition slows you down.

What This Slows Down

When an asset stays in make-do mode, three things happen.

You hesitate to send traffic to it. So promotion drops.
You keep editing instead of using it consistently.
You create something new instead of stabilizing what already exists.

You’re restarting instead of compounding.

This Isn’t About Quality

Most of the time, the asset works. It reflects your direction. It communicates clearly.

You’re not fixing something broken. You’re polishing something usable. The issue isn’t quality. The issue is that you haven’t decided it’s done for now. When nothing is marked done, everything stays open.

Open decisions multiply.

Where This Pattern Shows Up

This often shows up right after growth.

Your thinking has sharpened. Your offers have shifted.

But instead of choosing what stays, you keep everything in make-do mode.

Nothing becomes stable.

Instead of committing to repetition, you keep adjusting. That stalls momentum more than any algorithm ever could.

The Cost of Perpetual Revising

When you keep revisiting assets, you send less traffic. You repeat less often. You create more from scratch. And visibility never compounds. It keeps restarting.

You don’t need better assets.

You need fewer open ones.

And most of them stay open for one reason. You never defined what finished looks like. So you keep editing by feel instead of by standard.