Lower the stakes

I’m often unhappy with my posts. They are leaving out some steps. They don’t set context. They are too wordy. They are not polished and do not sparkle. They are fuzzy and unfocused, mixing different mental images etc. and so on.

But…

Perfection breeds procrastination. At least it stands in front of the door and mocks: “Do you really want to publish that? That’s below the standards you have set for yourself. This will be forever blemish your reputation.”

So here is a way to think differently about it.

What if I think of publishing a post not as publishing a perfect post, but as publishing a draft of a post? And then in the future I might revisit that post, re-write it, give it a brush-up, and publish the next draft version of it?

Then it’s just a series of drafts – and hopefully the post gets better over time.

And what happenes to the original draft? Nothing. It stays where it is. Who cares? Nothing is ever completely done. Or as Rick Rubin says in The Creative Act

No one diary entry is your life’s story.