
forcing myself to publish
Oliver Jakobi • February 17, 2021
writing personalI don't get things to a state of "done" very often. Here's how I try to change it.
My problem with value
I am bad at finding value in what I create. Bad to an extent that I don't deem my own work 'worthy' enough to be published or even kept on my hard drive or backup storage.
I delete stuff I had been working on for hours, sometimes days.
The finance tracking app, that had a couple of cool features? Deleted.
That article I wrote about number systems and their use in our day to day live? Gone.
60+ pages of a fantasy novel I wrote back when I was twenty? Bye bye.
Yes, you read that right.
There is a constant cycle of me creating and nearly inevitably destroying my work that goes on and on and seemingly never ends. Today I am here to stop that.
The 'solution'
I reached out to my near-to-zero followers on twitter, asking for advice. Luckily, @MayADevBe shared a rather simple but striking view on in:
[...] just not expecting "anything to come from it".
Now don't get me wrong. This is neither new nor a revelation in itself.
I heard it over and over again.
Just do what you like. If there's something to come from it: fine.
If not? Well, you had the you of creating, right?
Setting it to action
Why would I start changing my behaviour just now?
Honestly, I don't know. There are quite a few things changing in 2021. New home, new city, new ideas. But this time I want them to stick around for time. Maybe that's the reason. We'll see.
To follow through, I made a simple set of rules.
- write down Ideas
- sort them by difficulty
- start small
- publish
- review if necessary
But most important for now: publish.
Maybe the Idea of "it being out there" takes away the doubts.
To make sure I do, I allow me to add to my new office space only, if I check a box on a topic I wanted to cover or learn.
Need a lamp? Write and publish something.
New book? Write about something you learned and publish.
You get the idea.
So what's more than to hope that I follow through and keep doing it?
Ah, right. Create. Publish. Repeat.
Here's to the new lamp ;)
Cheers
Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels