Where Do UFOs Come From?

It's a problem most if not all knitters encounter at least once (or 100 times) in their knitting lives. It's the Cast on that becomes a WIP that gets pushed to the back burner that eventually becomes a UFO, never to be touched again. How does this happen? In some cases, it is because the knitter loves casting on and has ADD (the ADD part, much like me) and then they find another project to cast on, and it continues; many beginnings but no ends. Some people are actually organized enough with their multiple projects to have one for every occasion; the WIP for watching TV, the WIP for taking on the bus/train/out, the WIP for when you're angry, the WIP because you're bored with all the other WIPs. Those organized people probably have very few UFOs.
And then there are the projects from when we first learned how to knit. The 14 inch wide garter stitch scarf made of Red Heart (or some equivalent), every row a different tension, and it goes on for about 6 feet. These are UFOs that will most likely never be touched again, and for some people they are probably so buried in their stash (and other UFOs) that they don't even realize they are there. I have had at least one of those. I decided to make a cute little bolero, but the yarn was so painful to knit with, I gave up, stuffed it in the back of the bottm drawers and didn't touch it for over a year before ripping everything off the needles and throwing the whole thing away. (This is how I can claim I have no UFOs; they're trashed before anyone can account for them) I have either donated or thrown away yarn that I no longer have a desire to knit with, so the bolero problem, adn any others like it, has been pretty much solved.
So how can such a monogamous knitter begin to see a UFO waiting to happen? Take 18 balls of a bulky yarn, add in a cable pattern and the "Imma make a big blanket!!" attitute, stir and let settle for.... 2.5 months until 3.5 balls remain. I don't know what it is. I think the pattern is very nice; it has helped me look at cables and get good tension on them, and to be able to recognize where in the pattern I am and how many rows since the last cable I have knit. The yarn is nice and warm, and even in my apartment, it is still pretty cool, so it is not suffocating to knit. But I am so anxious to get this darned thing finished! My ADD is kicking in full gear and it is taking every amount of will power I have in me to not throw my hands up over my head, walk away and say "I give up!" I mean, really.. I have less than 4 balls left. How hard can it be to suck it up and chug out the last little bit? And as compared to socks when I knit for a solid hour on the blanket, I can see a few inches progress instead of only a few centimeters. Each time I pick it up, I think about the Fingerless mitts which are my knit night projects, since.. I mean really. Who wants to lug around 15 balls of bulky yarn every Thursday evening? And I think.. I need to get back to that gusset that I was working on. I am going to pull it all the way back from the start so I can use this other method of M1 so I don't get those nice little holes. And now it makes sense to me, and oh! This is going to be so fast once I finish this darned blanket! At which point I look at the blanket and *almost* consider binding off short and proclaiming "Look! I'm done! Isn't it great?!" Which would leave me with another problem; what to do with the remaining balls that were not used in the blanket.
This is how UFOs are born. If I were incapable of such restraint, I'd have cast on a lace shawl or that sweater I've been meaning to make, and the blanket would be shoved in a corner or left to the cats to sit on (like they don't do that already). So I force myself to finish, knowing that I'll be so happy when I do complete it. I'll throw myself a little party. I've got the wine ready. Here's to preventing UFOs.