Finish The Damn Thing

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. 

George Patton

I once had employee that I had to let go.

When I let him go, I went through a post-mortem of what went wrong and started reviewing some of his work.

There was something like 5 projects that were all un-done.

He would get to a specific part in the project (typically 80% through – almost finished) and then inevitably hit an obstacle.

And instead of giving up or overcoming it, and finishing the thing, he’d switch to another project.

Looking at this in hindsight – it’s easy to see what when wrong and the advice to success would be pretty clear – just finish the damn thing.

I’m not picking on him, I’ve done the same thing – but the experience with someone else doing it – highlights an issue that percolates below the surface.

Just finish it.

“We can fix it in post”

That’s a phrase used in filmmaking when you don’t get the shot perfect, but you gotta roll with it anyways.

It gets overused a lot, and it’s a bit of a joke if you flub a shot on site – but it actually works well in real life.

Your meal plan for the week doesn’t have to be perfect.

Your workout plan doesn’t have to be perfect.

Your blog doesn’t have to be perfect

But you do you have to do it (if you want to move forward).

Unfinished does no good.

Hoping for perfection is often just a form of procrastination. And you might not realize it yet, but eventually you run out of time.

• You get too hungry trying to plan your perfect meal, give up and just eat whatever.
• You get frustrated on wanting to time your workouts, only to realize the gym is closed.
• You’re never happy with your blog posts, so you have 200 ones left in draft and never did anything.
• You keep putting off your goals, and one day you’re in a nursing home wondering what happened.

And the potential is left on the table. Wishing you had done something with it. Wondering what happened.

So stop messing around. Stop lying to yourself. Stop waiting.

Finish the damn thing.

Perfect it later.