New Series: How to get a stalled project moving again, round VI: Jettison Perfectionism!

A colleague once told me that the key to writing productively is to be able to write “a shitty first draft.” Why? Because creating something that is already perfect takes a lot of energy, and it’s slow and painful, when it works at all, and it often doesn’t. Getting interesting but imperfect ideas out, modifying the content,  then revising for flow, editing for style and punctuation, and tweaking it one last time, actually goes a lot faster because you are only focusing on one aspect of it at a time. Typically, we only see the finished product, and it is usually quite good. We don’t see the numerous revisions that brought the product from “interesting” to “good” to “amazing.” We don’t see the overflowing wastepaper basket that made it possible. Whether we are writing a report, designing a process flow, creating a marketing program or whatever, we get much more done if we allow ourselves to let go of perfect and create great stuff which we will rework later. Read Round I of this series here ROUTINES Read Round II here PAIN & GAIN Read Round III here ACCOUNTABILITY BUDDY Read Round IV here LEAN ON YOUR VALUES Read Round V here PLANNING & TRACKING