There is a great post over on Bre Pettis' website that recently came to my attention courtesy of the Twittersphere. The post is titled "The Cult of Done Manifesto" and it contains 13 rules to follow to by god get stuff done. Its not a perfect list, but I do think its a reminder of the kick in the pants we all need sometimes. I'm particularly fond of #9.
"Doing shit is hard". But that doesnt change the fact that sometimes you just need to saddle up and get 'er done.
"Doing shit is hard". But that doesnt change the fact that sometimes you just need to saddle up and get 'er done.
The Cult of Done Manifesto
- There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
- Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
- There is no editing stage.
- 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.
- Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
- The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
- Once you're done you can throw it away.
- Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
- People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
- Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
- Destruction is a variant of done.
- If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
- Done is the engine of more.
A lot of wisdom here. I especially like 8, 9, and 13. Number 4 is my "fake it until you make it" philosophy. The rest are good too. I still think there is something to be said about doing a solid job versus doing something sloppily -- so maybe my #14 is "If you're going to do something half-assed, don't bother."
This is awesome. Naturally, I am happy for number 12.