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be adequate and finish things, try not to be perfect


 

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  • The Hinterlands
    2 entries

  • Entries

    loverstreet is up in the air

    A good week... 1 day ago

    I managed to make fair to good progress in my proposal writing this week. My twelve proposals (gasp!) are due next Friday and I have them all pretty well finished with only some hole-filling remaining. I did this primarily by purging words onto a page to get the gist of the research idea outlined and then re-writing and refining afterwards. This is a faster and more gratifying technique than my previous laborious technique of crafting each sentence before moving on to the next sentence. I still spend more than the warranted amount of time on each proposal, checking for ease of reading, grammatical perfection, and formatting. But it’s progress, I think. I hope to have all of the proposals ready to submit by Monday.



    {Turandot} wonders "what about the view?"

    a reminder from Wendy Belcher's newsletter (april 2005): the power of stopping 4 weeks ago

    Stories from the Writing Life

    At a dinner party hosted by a fellow writer, I met an engineer who had published eight hundred articles. His publication list, in ten-point type, was thirty-two pages long.

    “Eight hundred articles!” I exclaimed. I had never met someone who had published so much, although I knew that engineers tended to publish much more than those in other disciplines. “You’ve got to tell me,” I said, “what is the secret of your success?”

    He replied with a smile, “You know, I have one.”

    I waited with bated breath and he said, smiling, “Beyond the scope of this article.”

    “What?” I said.

    “I do a little research, I do a little typing, when I run through what I know and am up against something I don’t, I simply write that such and such is ‘beyond the scope of this article,’ and I’m done. I print it out and send it off.”

    This may not seem like genius at first blush, but it is. He has learned that extraordinary skill of knowing when enough is enough. For you must stop and let go of your work if it is ever to be published. This is the secret of his tremendous productivity: stopping.

    See www.wendybelcher.com



    loverstreet is up in the air

    Another example of when Wrong is ultimately Right 4 weeks ago

    This seems so wrong…aim for mediocrity, get ‘er done, quantity over quality….all that. But for some people, like myself, this is the only way I’ll get the unimportant-yet-urgent things out of the way so that I can focus on the truly-important-but-seemingly-less-urgent items that are forever getting pushed to the end of my To Do list.

    I’m glad I ran across this goal while checking out Turandot 43 Things. Thanks.



    {Turandot} wonders "what about the view?"

    the book is finished! 8 months ago

    and the ms. is by the publisher
    to come out in the next 45 days
    I feel having fought the nemean lion and the hydra all together!

    Confetti and bubbles all around now!



    Mme Delacroix is writing Christmas Cards to 43Ters

    hallelujah 9 months ago

    completed my 3rd assessed task for the semester yesterday and sent it off on time!!!



    Mme Delacroix is writing Christmas Cards to 43Ters

    And another one gone... and another one gone... another one bites the dust! 9 months ago

    finished my 2nd assessed task : D
    Wahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!



    Mme Delacroix is writing Christmas Cards to 43Ters

    Note to self: 11 months ago

    Use up Cheers when I’ve got them.
    Today watched 11 cheers dwindle down to 4 in a matter of one hour.



    {Turandot} wonders "what about the view?"

    the first thing finished 16 months ago

    after taking the resolution
    is the Hedgehog paper

    and I did it less than 10 days after taking the resolution!
    that’s astonishing
    particularly considering that I used to be so afraid by the idea of finishing
    of not being allowed to make some more changes, and some more…

    I must have a problem with this committing to something fixed
    every time I do, I change my mind, try to resist, try to change, try to postpone

    :yesterday I phoned to see if I could change the date of the flight

    if I manage to acquire a taste for finishing
    omg, that’d be just what I need
    nothing could stop me then!



    {Turandot} wonders "what about the view?"

    the wording 17 months ago

    comes directly from
    Emily Toth

    the experimental July revolves around this idea:
    try not to be perfect
    because this principle can easily pass
    from the will to do and be one’s best
    to the acknowledgement that best is unattainable
    thus becoming a great excuse to withdraw

    or, as somebody wrote much more briefly:
    the perfect is the enemy of the good

    I see already that July won’t be enough to plant this seed into my brain
    and I want to plan a revolution in my life
    around this principle:
    that being adequate is just enough.




     

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