How To Get Started - The Cult of Done
Introduced to the concept by No Boilerplate, who frames it with his own perspective and presents it very well ( link). The original medium post is here.
The key concepts and emphasis on movement and starting is useful, though definitely flawed if taken literally to every scenario. It seems the wisdom in the advice is best suited to those biased towards unhealthy perfectionism, and to those who struggle with the friction in starting projects.
I find myself to naturally veer towards both those issues, and so find the ideas here refreshingly eloquent. From this, I’m provided the utility of being able to borrow the extreme perspective as a heuristic that helps balance the pedantic part of my personality.
# The Cult of Done Manifesto
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
- The action stage is about doing something and working through the “Not Knowing” stage.
- It is almost ALWAYS, characterised by mistakes.
- “Completion”, refers to the transmutation of your actions, into a solution, product or skill.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
- Quick sketches or prototypes can make production and final drafts.
“I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu).” - Linus Torvalds, at age 21, changing the world.
3. There is no editing stage.
- If you make a mistake, start again.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
- Learning is a continuous process, so in doing, you know what you are doing.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
- Creativity and inspiration comes in sporadic waves.
- A good idea should not be procrastinated on. If it is, then it should be abandoned for another.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
- In moving onto the next one, you are one project richer and one step closer to your goal.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
“No piece of writing is ever finished. It’s simply due. - Bill Conden
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
- Don’t allow people with uneducated perspectives to sway your beliefs.
- Rather, place more value on the input of those who are where you want to be, or have done what you want to achieve.
- Particularly so, if they have proven experience in repeating this success, and guiding others to this exact success.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
- Failure is proof of an effortful attempt. Success, comparatively, teaches us very little.
- Would you follow the advice of someone who had failed various ways before finding success, or someone who won the metaphorical lottery and stumbled to their position?
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
- Many forms of success are predicated on experimentation.
- These stepping stones used to gain experience, yet tossed as to not “edit” it into stifling stagnation. Toss it, and follow rule 3… start again.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- Thomas Alva Edison
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
- Not super sure on this one… probably more relevant for the authors as writers and makers who are deeply involved with their respective communities.
13. Done is the engine of more.