“The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work.” – Berthold Auerbach, Born Feb. 28, 1812.

Yeah, you're not alone. But you're not getting younger and time is wasting. Quit trying to craft perfection.

Publish imperfect work now.

Fix later MAYBE.

But even better: just start working on the next thing and try to correct your past mistakes in that future work.

Expect to make more mistakes in the new work, too.

That's ok.

Learn from them and try new things to correct those mistakes in the next work.

And so on. Rinse, repeat. Forever.

Otherwise, you're futzing with some alleged masterpiece while mediocre shitsmiths are scooping up your starving audience because YOU ARE NOT THERE.

Showing up is the thing. Creativity only helps if you show up. Genius only strikes if you've shown up to meet it. Bad ideas and poor execution only get purged from the system when you show up and blast it out by working through it and beyond it.

You don't have to be the best, and your work doesn't have to be the best.

You just have to commit to getting better and better. You do that through continuous and consistent practice.

Do it. Publish now. Start on the next thing immediately.

Let the last thing you did be your jumping off point, and just take it a little further, then share it. Do that every day.

See where you get in a year. Or two. Or ten. It's not a secret. Just do it. Keep going. Don't stop.

~~~

Need a bit more? Here is a small list of ways you can ditch your perfectionism and procrastination in favor of pragmatic productivity and publication…

1. Use timers. You have an hour to write your piece. If it’s not done in an hour, publish it as part 1.

2. Write nothing that isn’t published. If you wrote it, it must go up. Email it, post it, share it somewhere.

3. Publish your first draft. Stick it somewhere casual. Social media. Blog. Anywhere digital is a test – polish it if it will see print.

4. Write every day. If you don’t have an idea, write about how you don’t have an idea. The discipline is what matters. Don’t get fooled into needing a mood.

5. Tag your daily work with the topic it addresses. This is easy if you write about your actual work with clients and customers. Daily frustrations become fuel, which serves to create a rapport with your audience. Sell them the solutions you develop.

6. When you’ve got sufficient content around a particular topic, now you’ve got a book. You don’t even have to write it, just organize and edit. Hey now, published author. How cool is that?

That’s all for today. If you like this, let me know! If you need help, reach out. Thanks for your time.