One of the phrases I hear very often is, ‘We need to think about...’
Thinking is a good thing, at the start of something, when you’re really thinking through what you’re trying to achieve. It’s also good to review what you’re trying to do, part way through as well. But if all you do is stop to think about things, you’re probably not doing an awful lot. And if you’re not doing an awful lot, what’s the point in thinking about it, isn’t that just naval gazing?
There comes a time in every project to stop thinking and start doing.
If the UK Meet Spice Organisers had only thought about what the UK Meet needed to include, and hadn’t actually done any of the organising, the planning, the booking, the blogging, the tweeting, the panelling, we wouldn’t have had a UK Meet in Manchester at all. We’d have had a lot of thoughts, ideas, worries, things to consider, but no actual UK Meet. Thankfully we didn’t do that, we had a plan (the thinking right at the start) executed it, and dealt with everything else (still by thinking, don’t get me wrong), as it came along.
It can be really easy to worry over the small details to such an extent you can’t just get on and get the job done. The background colour of a website, whether a character’s dialogue is a bit too...something, are those toasted almonds on the cake toasted just enough?
These details are important to us, but sometimes you just have to put them aside, and get on with the main project. You have to put aside the pursuit of perfection for the pursuit of getting the job done.
There’s not much in life which is forever, as in for eternity. There’s not much you can’t go back to afterwards and tinker with. But you can only tinker with something which you’ve done, you can’t tinker an idea. You can’t edit a blank page.
If you spend too much time agonising over a perfect birthday present for someone, chances are you’ll miss their birthday, or it’ll have become such an insurmountable task, you won’t get them anything. Surely an ok present (or even just a card) is better than a perfect idea of a present?
We spent five years thinking about how we wanted to landscape the back and front gardens. There was always another something to think about, to stop us actually doing it. Earlier in summer we just got on with it. We had a plan, and a builder and dealt with the little problems as they came up, with much help from Mum and the builders. And now, I’m sat in the new back garden, writing this. Without actually doing the landscaping, this would have been impossible, we’d have still been just thinking about it.
A writer said to me about blog posts, the important thing is to do them, not to worry too much about them being absolutely perfect. It’s about the content, the ideas, the stream of new information, not about the fact that you’ve got a twirley background you spent months to perfect, not about having the perfect phrases to express exactly what you mean.
People don’t come to websites for twirley backgrounds, they come for interesting content. They might stay on a website which has a twirley background they like and good content, but just the twirley background, not so much. Which reminds me, I need to think about updating my banner pictures...
Are you a perfectionist? Does it sometimes stop you getting things done? Or do you think there's still a place for perfectionism? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time
Liam xx
Thinking is a good thing, at the start of something, when you’re really thinking through what you’re trying to achieve. It’s also good to review what you’re trying to do, part way through as well. But if all you do is stop to think about things, you’re probably not doing an awful lot. And if you’re not doing an awful lot, what’s the point in thinking about it, isn’t that just naval gazing?
There comes a time in every project to stop thinking and start doing.
If the UK Meet Spice Organisers had only thought about what the UK Meet needed to include, and hadn’t actually done any of the organising, the planning, the booking, the blogging, the tweeting, the panelling, we wouldn’t have had a UK Meet in Manchester at all. We’d have had a lot of thoughts, ideas, worries, things to consider, but no actual UK Meet. Thankfully we didn’t do that, we had a plan (the thinking right at the start) executed it, and dealt with everything else (still by thinking, don’t get me wrong), as it came along.
It can be really easy to worry over the small details to such an extent you can’t just get on and get the job done. The background colour of a website, whether a character’s dialogue is a bit too...something, are those toasted almonds on the cake toasted just enough?
These details are important to us, but sometimes you just have to put them aside, and get on with the main project. You have to put aside the pursuit of perfection for the pursuit of getting the job done.
There’s not much in life which is forever, as in for eternity. There’s not much you can’t go back to afterwards and tinker with. But you can only tinker with something which you’ve done, you can’t tinker an idea. You can’t edit a blank page.
If you spend too much time agonising over a perfect birthday present for someone, chances are you’ll miss their birthday, or it’ll have become such an insurmountable task, you won’t get them anything. Surely an ok present (or even just a card) is better than a perfect idea of a present?
We spent five years thinking about how we wanted to landscape the back and front gardens. There was always another something to think about, to stop us actually doing it. Earlier in summer we just got on with it. We had a plan, and a builder and dealt with the little problems as they came up, with much help from Mum and the builders. And now, I’m sat in the new back garden, writing this. Without actually doing the landscaping, this would have been impossible, we’d have still been just thinking about it.
A writer said to me about blog posts, the important thing is to do them, not to worry too much about them being absolutely perfect. It’s about the content, the ideas, the stream of new information, not about the fact that you’ve got a twirley background you spent months to perfect, not about having the perfect phrases to express exactly what you mean.
People don’t come to websites for twirley backgrounds, they come for interesting content. They might stay on a website which has a twirley background they like and good content, but just the twirley background, not so much. Which reminds me, I need to think about updating my banner pictures...
Are you a perfectionist? Does it sometimes stop you getting things done? Or do you think there's still a place for perfectionism? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time
Liam xx
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