Laugh at perfection: A Manifesto to Stop Procrastinating Once and for All
Whenever you’re in doubt or facing lazy, remind yourself that doing something (anything, even if you think you have no idea what you’re doing) is better than doing nothing at all.
Procrastination is a word in vogue. It implies a sense of urgency mixed with the guilt of knowing that we should be doing something important (useful even), while instead we act like an external observer that sees himself choosing to ignore said tasks. The tabs on our screen multiply while the pile of dishes sitting in the sink grows; bills must be paid, calls made, emails should be answered and work has to be done.
To think and discuss why we tend to be irresponsible and apathetic could be a trap. It is also, of course, a form of procrastination. Bre Pettis and Kio Stark know this very well, since, like most of the people in our information-bombarded world, they began doing many things they never finished. Thus The Cult of the Done Manifesto was born, a series of advice that will help you do things, finish them, progress and, especially, will help us reprogram the habit of apathy and procrastination, leaving no place for them in daily life (these were written in merely twenty minutes, with nonpareil efficiency):
The Cult of the Done Manifesto
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. 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.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, which counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.
.
Painting by Thomas Devaux
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