The gist of it is this:
Don’t try to get things perfect on the first go. Make something rough & messy that does the job and get it out there! Start using it, start adding to it, improve the parts that bother you, throw away the ones that don’t fit. Keep it messy.
EMBRACE THE MESS!
When working on things, learn to embrace the “good enough” state. The first draft that doesn’t get refined, but serves the purpose. This is especially true for personal projects.
I have a tendency to focus on a project and start building elaborate and extendable scaffolding without first validating that the thing will provide value / fulfill its purpose. Some examples are:
Spending weeks designing a personal website “suite” (portfolio, micro-blog, digital garden) without actually building it and without actually having any content to put on it!
Building a very elaborate and over-designed Discord server for a community which doesn’t yet exist, and then failing to foster that community (I’m slowly getting better)
Trying to set-up a cataloguing system for my notes/reading-list/etc. before I actually verify that such a system makes sense for me
This whole site is my attempt to fight this urge, to get it stuff out there, and selectively improve it as I go.
If it works and does something, it’s probably good enough! Put it out there, get it in front of folks! Or keep it to yourself and use it.
Don’t let it sit in your drawer & collect dust. Or worse, let it stay an idea in your head. Make the thing! Show it around, use it!
It’s not a beauty contest, or homework. Nobody’s going to grade you on it. You definitely shouldn’t grade yourself on it. It’s your silly little thing! If it’s fun for you to work on, it’s doing its job!
NORMALIZE SHARING SCRAPPY FIDDLES!
Now this part might sound odd, but… Don’t fix it! Let it be messy. The moment you start polishing it, it starts becoming precious. And when it does become precious, you are back to square one. You set a standard for yourself, and anything you try to add will have to meet that standard.
You will spend more time polishing and less time making stuff, which will result in less stuff being made. And we don’t want that! Because, the more stuff you make, the more you improve!
So have no standards! Let things dangle, leave stuff broken. Keep it messy!
Okay, you can fix some things. But be mindful about it! Fight the urge to fix things immediately as you notice them. Let them sit broken for a while. On your third, fourth time that you feel the urge, ask yourself this:
- Will fixing this make it significantly easier for me to add more stuff?
- Will it meaningfully improve usability?
- Can I fix it in one afternoon?
If the answer to any of those is “No”, then don’t fix it just yet. Leave it for now and next time you encounter this issue, allow yourself one more “No”. (This isn’t a strict method, just a good rule of thumb that works for me. Use your brain. Figure out what works for you.)
In case it needs to be said, the goal is not to have an ugly, broken thing. The goal is to spend your time on the right things. In most cases, you are the only person working on the project and you likely do so in your spare time. You can’t fix everything, so only fix the things that truly need fixing. Spend the rest of the time on the meat of your project!
Your time is precious, use it well!
That’s it! There’s more stuff to read in my messy garden. Take a look!