Doing Things Badly

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
– G.K. Chesterton

This quote shows that we need room to do things badly.

I read this quote in a book about writing essays. So I thought how am I going to brainstorm about this idea. I opened TLdraw and wrote the quote in a rectangle. My next thought was to use a different tool, with which I could brainstorm more efficiently: a mindmap or outliner.

Then I noticed the conflict with the quote. I noticed that I immediately started to look for better ways to capture the brainstorming. So instead of doing the work, I noticed the urge to move away from it. So there I had the chance to keep working badly, instead of trying to make a more perfect brainstorm.

You see that the brainstorm itself is not the important work. The process of brainstorming, generates the raw ideas that we can use for the main task.

Therefore, I say we should keep the momentum going and work badly.

We should keep working badly, even when there are better methods available. Especially in new tasks that I don’t do often, I get the urge to find other ways to do the same work. This urge will have you switch between tools and tasks. Where first your purpose was to expand the ideas around the main topic, now you are looking for other tools that fit better with that task.

I note that often these tools are not much better in absolute terms, for what you are doing. It all depends on the task. For example when brainstorming, we need to write things down. This could be done with a visual tool like TLdraw, or with a mindmap tool, or with an Outliner.

When we switch tools in the middle of a task, we also switch from making to judging. We need to evaluate the tool we are moving towards. Also we compare with the tool we were using. The cost of this switching is not only the time we lose, but also that we lose momentum, motivation, energy, and focus. The task we were working on now becomes a side-project.

Instead of switching during the task, we should first complete it and then look around. And even better we could just let it go and keep working badly.

Today I wanted to write an essay. The book I was reading told me to pick a topic from the list of topics and quotes and expand that topic. One of the ways to do that is by brainstorming.

So I open TLdraw and draw the first rectangle and write the quote inside it. I create the next rectangle and I write quality. The next thought is I should use a different tool, that is more efficient when brainstorming, because now I’m drawing rectangles and arrows and this distracts from the brainstorming itself.

This pattern repeats often, we are working on a task and we see a better way, we could use another tool, or write a tool ourselves. Now instead of doing the work, we are not doing it at all.

Better is that we should keep working on the task with momentum. Keep the distraction at bay, by allowing us to work badly. The goal of the whole task is to have better ideas for the essay instead of a better setup.

Allow yourself to do things badly, as it is an antidote to perfectionism. We don’t have to make a perfect mindmap, outline, or visual brainstorm. Trying to make it perfect with colors and placement.

When you try to find the ideas that make up the topic of an essay, you don’t need to have a perfect list of ideas. We can make the ideas work even if they are not good.

In the end we should keep working on the task and keep the momentum going, instead of finding the better setup.