unsustainable perfectionism
from evy's notebook
When I started this daily writing project a week ago, I set a few goals for myself:
- practice writing in a way that communicates emotion and feels compelling
- practice taking complex concepts and distilling them to concise writing that communicates clear and interesting ideas
- learn about writing tools and practice using them
- do more weird shit, try new experiments, be creative, write about topics that feel uncomfortable
- challenge my perfectionism and improve my relationship with writing things that aren't very good
I feel like I've engaged quite well with many of these goals, but made little progress with that last one.
Every page I've written in this notebook so far has been something I've felt good about. The topics all interest me, the formats often feel new and exciting, and I feel like I'm learning things with each piece I write. I've even been keeping a written record of thoughts I have while I write, as well as taking notes from my daily feedback sessions with Wesley (who is also
writing daily).
I enjoy taking this project seriously and doing cool things with it, but I've also spent so many hours writing this week and I don't think it's sustainable to have such a high bar for myself every day.
I want to practice spending less time writing. It's valuable to think carefully about writing as I do it, but it's also valuable to have a sustainable writing practice that I can keep up over many days.
If I write something that doesn't feel particularly interesting or experimental, what's the use in that? Well, maybe there's value in publishing something that I think is bad or boring and seeing how I feel - maybe that's the experiment.
Today's experiment can be skipping part of my editing process and posting this as soon as I finish writing the first draft.