Done Is Better Than Planned
A guitarist friend spent a week chasing a take he'd already nailed on day one. Developers do the same with posts about their work: the first honest draft is usually the best, and polishing it for days kills the habit. A recording lives for years. A post doesn't.
“Ugh, it went horrible. Got a solid take the first day, and a week later it still wasn’t quite right.”
That’s what a guitarist friend told me after a week in the recording studio.
It made me laugh. Because developers do the exact same thing.
We tweak. Then tweak some more. Throw in a refactor or two. All because it’s never quite ready to share.
That goes double when we’re writing about our work.
Here’s what you’re missing.
Your first pass is usually the most real and the most honest. You write it like you’re telling a friend what happened.
How ticked off that bug made you, only to find the fix was stupidly simple. The sigh of relief when that troubled release finally hit production.
Then you decide it’s not good enough. Change that sentence. Dial back that emotion. Add more detail. Make it more technical.
The list goes on and on.
And something you could have finished in 15 minutes on Monday is still sitting there Friday afternoon, a few hours of work later.
If and when you finally post it, it doesn’t feel right. And it took so long that you decide this pace is unsustainable.
Done is better than planned.
As for my friend? I heard both takes. He’s a brilliant musician, and both were amazing. But I could hear where he was going, and he was right. It needed the time.
He’s making something that will live on for years.
That post? Nobody will see it again in a couple of weeks.