Publishing > polishing

The goal needs to be publishing not polishing.

Polishing is about smoothing edges: making sure that the colors stay in between the lines, that spread sheet is manicured to the bosses specifications, figuring out what kind of guitar your favorite artist used to start their band.

The problem with polishing is that when you keep going through the same thing over and over, again and again, it can turn into hiding. We all hide because we are afraid of putting our work out for the world to see. The way to avoid this is to have a ship date and get the product good enough to launch.

Ironically, most products get better and better when time passes. Google wasn’t perfect when it first started. The later people waited to use it the better it got.

Some of the best works have the shortest deadlines. Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks, single spaced, on one continuous 120 foot scroll.

There is no arguing that “the scroll” turned into one of the finest pieces of literature to come from the Beat Generation. Kerouac understood it was less about tactics (procedures) and more about form (bring pieces together). Kerouac wasn’t worried about grammar, punctuation, what kind of type writer he needed. It was about writing. It was about publishing something which meant heavy lifting.