"Never stop doing stuff! Always stop doing stuff!"
January 15, 2024 5:28 AM Subscribe
"Start Often, Finish Rarely": "start as many things as you have the ability, interest, and capacity to, with no regard or goal whatsoever for finishing those projects..... You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And 'done' can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is." A bit of inspiration, for the subset of us who'll find it helpful. Related: the No Maintenance Intended badge.
Apologies. Link should be
https://unmaintained.tech/
and I've used the Contact form to ask mods to fix that.
posted by brainwane at 5:46 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
https://unmaintained.tech/
and I've used the Contact form to ask mods to fix that.
posted by brainwane at 5:46 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
Thanks, brainwane! Now that I’ve gotten cynical self-deprecation out of the way, I hope other folks don’t let it derail things.
posted by zamboni at 5:55 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 5:55 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
I love this. I was brought up by two risk-adverse people who wanted me to think through EVERYTHING before I started anything. They still raise concerns about things today. I’m talking “oh I wonder if we could grow a cherry tree!” Cue worries. It took my a long time to realize that I can just go ahead and do things and enjoy the doing. This is a great reminder.
posted by CMcG at 6:16 AM on January 15 [34 favorites]
posted by CMcG at 6:16 AM on January 15 [34 favorites]
The first rule of SOFA Club...
posted by chavenet at 6:33 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 6:33 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]
Just KonMari that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it.
This is a genuinely powerful sentiment that I could never really internalize when it came to stuff, but in this context it makes so much sense to me.
And I'm probably better able to get rid of the stuff that was acquired for an activity I have let go, too, so then it translates back again.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:36 AM on January 15 [12 favorites]
This is a genuinely powerful sentiment that I could never really internalize when it came to stuff, but in this context it makes so much sense to me.
And I'm probably better able to get rid of the stuff that was acquired for an activity I have let go, too, so then it translates back again.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:36 AM on January 15 [12 favorites]
Someone recently said that a project is finished when it's taught you what you wanted to know. That makes me feel a lot better about my many (many!) unfinished coding and music projects.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:14 AM on January 15 [35 favorites]
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:14 AM on January 15 [35 favorites]
Now that I’ve gotten cynical self-deprecation out of the way, I hope other folks don’t let it derail things.
I mean, I had a very similar thought! As someone with ADHD, I already do this! But it's not necessarily a good thing, in my case.
posted by asnider at 9:25 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
I mean, I had a very similar thought! As someone with ADHD, I already do this! But it's not necessarily a good thing, in my case.
posted by asnider at 9:25 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is.
much as I love the freedom inherent in all of this, this is terrible advice for writing screenplays. By all means, stop writing something when the magic you're getting from it dissipates. But please don't call it finished. Maybe replace that with, "I'm finished with this f***ing thing." I've certainly done this many, many times, to the profound gratitude of my mental health.
posted by philip-random at 9:26 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
much as I love the freedom inherent in all of this, this is terrible advice for writing screenplays. By all means, stop writing something when the magic you're getting from it dissipates. But please don't call it finished. Maybe replace that with, "I'm finished with this f***ing thing." I've certainly done this many, many times, to the profound gratitude of my mental health.
posted by philip-random at 9:26 AM on January 15 [4 favorites]
This is a fantastic piece - one of the most inspiring I've read since the Crap Art Manifesto over 20 years ago.
I really liked Barbara Sher's Wishcraft, especially her encouragement that you don't have to choose to be one thing, to have a single career or a single focus for your creativity. However, she did really encourage people to finish their projects, to have a recital or an art show or something, and while that CAN be useful, that increasingly felt off to me, as I do so many of the things I do just for myself.
I am really appreciating how much this SOFA principle resonates for me, and makes me feel more joyful and unfettered about all the many things I like to do sporadically. (And now I'm re-looking up the etymology of "sporadically" and remembering that it comes from scattering and sowing, and I'm delighting in thinking about all my tiny ventures into varied enthusiasms as seeds.)
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this, brainwane. I really needed this today. Also yesterday. Also all the other days.
Just THINK how many things I can not get done today!
posted by kristi at 9:51 AM on January 15 [11 favorites]
I really liked Barbara Sher's Wishcraft, especially her encouragement that you don't have to choose to be one thing, to have a single career or a single focus for your creativity. However, she did really encourage people to finish their projects, to have a recital or an art show or something, and while that CAN be useful, that increasingly felt off to me, as I do so many of the things I do just for myself.
I am really appreciating how much this SOFA principle resonates for me, and makes me feel more joyful and unfettered about all the many things I like to do sporadically. (And now I'm re-looking up the etymology of "sporadically" and remembering that it comes from scattering and sowing, and I'm delighting in thinking about all my tiny ventures into varied enthusiasms as seeds.)
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this, brainwane. I really needed this today. Also yesterday. Also all the other days.
Just THINK how many things I can not get done today!
posted by kristi at 9:51 AM on January 15 [11 favorites]
I play a few different musical instruments well enough to get on stage in front of a crowd and perform credible music. But I've always both loved and been intimidated by piano. A couple of years ago I finally decided to buy myself an electronic keyboard and actually learn to play it. BUT - I also decided that I wasn't going to try to meet any goals, stick to a specific practice schedule, or even get good enough to play in front of people. I was just going to play what I felt like, when I felt like doing so. As a result my progress has been slow, but has remained enjoyable and stress-free. Who knows, I might eventually get good enough to be in a band...or I might not. I intend to simply keep having fun.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:13 AM on January 15 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:13 AM on January 15 [7 favorites]
Thanks for this fabulous post. Like kristi, I also needed this today, plus every other day. Great great stuff, especially for those of us dragging around shame for failing to complete this or that.
posted by Bella Donna at 10:21 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]
posted by Bella Donna at 10:21 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]
Someone recently said that a project is finished when it's taught you what you wanted to know.
Love this so much, 43rdAnd9th. Lately I'm testing out thinking this way about jobs, too.
And I'm probably better able to get rid of the stuff that was acquired for an activity I have let go, too, so then it translates back again.
My flavor of ADHD means that I cycle through a lot of activities. Some of them stick and will eventually cycle through at some future time, and others are a deep-dive-then-done. It would be nice to be able to box the done stuff up and swap for someone else's done stuff. Freecycling for hobbies. (In practice, this would take a ton of overhead, but it's a fun idea to pick at.)
posted by smirkette at 10:55 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
Love this so much, 43rdAnd9th. Lately I'm testing out thinking this way about jobs, too.
And I'm probably better able to get rid of the stuff that was acquired for an activity I have let go, too, so then it translates back again.
My flavor of ADHD means that I cycle through a lot of activities. Some of them stick and will eventually cycle through at some future time, and others are a deep-dive-then-done. It would be nice to be able to box the done stuff up and swap for someone else's done stuff. Freecycling for hobbies. (In practice, this would take a ton of overhead, but it's a fun idea to pick at.)
posted by smirkette at 10:55 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
I like the FA part of it. But the SO part feels pressure-y!
On a more serious note: one hurdle is that many hobbies need gear, and often have industries that want you to buy gear. You can occasionally find helpful internet advice saying "you don't need all that gear, here are the very few things you really need, and you can even make them yourself from household materials" (example), but most internet incentives are geared towards making you purchase a lot. And even well-meaning friends will say things like oh you can do your doorframe yourself, just use your powersaw like this, and I think what powersaw? I need to have a powersaw?
Tool libraries, buy-nothing groups, and adult show-and-tell nights are awesome, I hope they prosper and multiply.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:11 AM on January 15 [9 favorites]
On a more serious note: one hurdle is that many hobbies need gear, and often have industries that want you to buy gear. You can occasionally find helpful internet advice saying "you don't need all that gear, here are the very few things you really need, and you can even make them yourself from household materials" (example), but most internet incentives are geared towards making you purchase a lot. And even well-meaning friends will say things like oh you can do your doorframe yourself, just use your powersaw like this, and I think what powersaw? I need to have a powersaw?
Tool libraries, buy-nothing groups, and adult show-and-tell nights are awesome, I hope they prosper and multiply.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:11 AM on January 15 [9 favorites]
This seems like a good idea, but oh you know.what I don't even c
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:28 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:28 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]
As someone who has 35 or so solo guitar arrangements that are somewhere between 50%-90% ready to perform or record, this resonates with half of me, while the other half really wants to finish them.
The part that resonates with the idea is the part that decided to think of transcribing and playing as ‘gardening,’ so I just sit down with my guitar and decide in that moment which tunes I want to tend to on a given day.
posted by umbú at 11:39 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]
The part that resonates with the idea is the part that decided to think of transcribing and playing as ‘gardening,’ so I just sit down with my guitar and decide in that moment which tunes I want to tend to on a given day.
posted by umbú at 11:39 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]
I am a member of this club.
Puzzles that aren't fun? Goodbye. Book trilogy that first book was good, second was not so much, 3rd I just gave up on? Done. Project that is no longer fun? The end.
It's very satisfying to be able to decide I'm done.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 11:41 AM on January 15 [8 favorites]
Puzzles that aren't fun? Goodbye. Book trilogy that first book was good, second was not so much, 3rd I just gave up on? Done. Project that is no longer fun? The end.
It's very satisfying to be able to decide I'm done.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 11:41 AM on January 15 [8 favorites]
I have barely finished a damn thing in the past year and I'm not happy about it. Lots of bits of art that are a decent start that I just look at and can't get the energy to return to.
posted by egypturnash at 11:54 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 11:54 AM on January 15 [3 favorites]
When I was in high school some friends got me a Millennium Falcon model for my birthday. It was one of those snap together ones so it would be pretty easy to put together but in my mind I wanted to do it right by painting it so that it would look real when it was done. I am not good at painting and never got better enough to try to complete the model. I had that thing for years without doing anything with it, and for all I know it may still be in a box somewhere.
I don't know if the me of today would make it because what am I going to do with a completed Millennium Falcon model but I wouldn't not make it because I was worried about painting it. At worst I'd assemble the model and then give it to someone that would like to paint it.
My younger kid got a Gundam model for Christmas this year and we put it together over the holidays. It was a pretty simple model with no paint, stickers, or glue required and he enjoyed the process. He's pretty easy going about being half-assed about things so I don't think he'll have the same mental block that I did but we'll stick with the assemble-only models for a while until he decides he wants to do something more involved.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:08 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
I don't know if the me of today would make it because what am I going to do with a completed Millennium Falcon model but I wouldn't not make it because I was worried about painting it. At worst I'd assemble the model and then give it to someone that would like to paint it.
My younger kid got a Gundam model for Christmas this year and we put it together over the holidays. It was a pretty simple model with no paint, stickers, or glue required and he enjoyed the process. He's pretty easy going about being half-assed about things so I don't think he'll have the same mental block that I did but we'll stick with the assemble-only models for a while until he decides he wants to do something more involved.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:08 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
You know what's more valuable than any virtually any project I've ever done, lesson I've learned, etc.?
Time.
Wasting that on doing something that I'm doing because it's what I'm supposed to do, or it's "just how things are done": Nope. I am too old for that. And so are you.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:02 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
Time.
Wasting that on doing something that I'm doing because it's what I'm supposed to do, or it's "just how things are done": Nope. I am too old for that. And so are you.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:02 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
The thing about time is you can't really save it for later.
posted by Foosnark at 3:49 PM on January 15 [7 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 3:49 PM on January 15 [7 favorites]
I started writing this article like five years ago but got distracted.
As splitpeasoup mentioned, watching YouTube videos or browsing forums may convince you that you need to spend a lot of money to get started. What works for me is to make it -the project- to get results with as little expense as possible. If after that I am still interested, I start acquiring tools and materials.
Like right now I am building a controlled environment vivarium using fancy sensors and lights and heaters and nebulizers and all that inside a glass enclosure, with a lot of custom parts. The first iteration 10 years ago was an enclosure literally made of sticks and garbage bags using normal lightbulbs and the cheapest thermostat I could find, with an aquarium airstone in a jar for humidity and a semi loose knot in the airline to control airflow.
And back when I was in school I would go dumpster diving near the design and architecture buildings after midterms and finals. So much expensive material and sometimes even tools in there.
posted by Dr. Curare at 4:44 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
As splitpeasoup mentioned, watching YouTube videos or browsing forums may convince you that you need to spend a lot of money to get started. What works for me is to make it -the project- to get results with as little expense as possible. If after that I am still interested, I start acquiring tools and materials.
Like right now I am building a controlled environment vivarium using fancy sensors and lights and heaters and nebulizers and all that inside a glass enclosure, with a lot of custom parts. The first iteration 10 years ago was an enclosure literally made of sticks and garbage bags using normal lightbulbs and the cheapest thermostat I could find, with an aquarium airstone in a jar for humidity and a semi loose knot in the airline to control airflow.
And back when I was in school I would go dumpster diving near the design and architecture buildings after midterms and finals. So much expensive material and sometimes even tools in there.
posted by Dr. Curare at 4:44 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
much as I love the freedom inherent in all of this, this is terrible advice for writing screenplays.
Yeah, if anything, my screenwriting habits don't need this message even a little bit. The better screenplay maxim (which fuck me if I can internalize it!) is "Dogshit on the page is 100% better than something perfect in your head."
posted by Navelgazer at 4:54 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]
Yeah, if anything, my screenwriting habits don't need this message even a little bit. The better screenplay maxim (which fuck me if I can internalize it!) is "Dogshit on the page is 100% better than something perfect in your head."
posted by Navelgazer at 4:54 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]
Love this. It reminds me of a line in the movie Encanto in the song 'what else can I do'. It is it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be. This is such a mantra now for my craft hobbies. I find it so much easier to start something and enjoy the product more not worrying about whether I have it right or not.
posted by daffodil at 5:41 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]
posted by daffodil at 5:41 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]
"start as many things as you have the ability, interest, and capacity to, with no regard or goal whatsoever for finishing those projects..... You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And 'done' can mean anything you want it to be."
This appears to be the guiding principle Google adopted after they got rid of "Don't be evil".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:16 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
This appears to be the guiding principle Google adopted after they got rid of "Don't be evil".
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:16 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
I'm fairly sure venture capital plays by the same rules. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 12:12 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 12:12 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Thanks to a combination of this post and kristi’s crap art link, I recorded two songs this afternoon, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but never felt confident enough to do. It was fun to play them and feels amazing to have actually recorded them.
posted by bitbotbit at 12:33 PM on January 16 [12 favorites]
posted by bitbotbit at 12:33 PM on January 16 [12 favorites]
I just found this same site a few days ago, via the XXIIVV webring.
I was even more interested in the Cult of Done manifesto which gets detailed and more provocative.
But as jeffburdges points out, what might be fine for an individual creator starts to look a lot like "move fast and break things" if it is taken as a larger ethos.
So, maybe fine for managing an individual life, but not for designing air traffic control systems? And maybe that's obvious based on the context...
posted by anotherbrick at 8:32 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
I was even more interested in the Cult of Done manifesto which gets detailed and more provocative.
But as jeffburdges points out, what might be fine for an individual creator starts to look a lot like "move fast and break things" if it is taken as a larger ethos.
So, maybe fine for managing an individual life, but not for designing air traffic control systems? And maybe that's obvious based on the context...
posted by anotherbrick at 8:32 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Yes, it's obvious from the context in my opinion. This is a principle that individuals can use to help themselves be more relaxed about solo art and hobby projects.
posted by brainwane at 3:23 AM on January 17 [5 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 3:23 AM on January 17 [5 favorites]
I'd only meant the "start, pump, sell out, and abandon" VC cycle for overly complex technologies, or FANG "bullshit jobs", but yeah "move fast and break things" itself has similarities albeit less directly or simply analogous.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:55 PM on January 17
posted by jeffburdges at 1:55 PM on January 17
Move fast and break things is a perfectly good philosophy for personal creative experimentation; at the VC scale it's eliding something important that doesn't apply here, and should be understood as "move fast and break other people's things". The less said about it the better I feel like.
Like, if your songwriting or painting or woodworking or crochet or whatever isn't burning your neighbor's house down? Be as messy and as foolhardy with it as you can manage if it keeps you doing it. Try out half-baked ideas, jump in head first on something that might not work, be willing to ruin a work in progress with a notion you're not sure will even work but you feel like trying. And then be willing to walk away from it with a minor scars and a glad heart and move on to the next thing.
Which is easier advice for me to give than to take a lot of the time, and I definitely struggle with the paralysis of not having it in me to finish the old thing but not wanting to start the new thing because what about the OLD thing, and and and...but when you can keep yourself moving and not get anchored down by imperfect or stalled-out projects, it's a good thing, and lets you get going on the next thing that maybe you'll finish or maybe it'll just be a precursor to the thing after that. Do the things. Start the things. See where they go, and let yourself be okay with it if where they go is not as far as you'd hoped at the start.
posted by cortex at 5:13 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
Like, if your songwriting or painting or woodworking or crochet or whatever isn't burning your neighbor's house down? Be as messy and as foolhardy with it as you can manage if it keeps you doing it. Try out half-baked ideas, jump in head first on something that might not work, be willing to ruin a work in progress with a notion you're not sure will even work but you feel like trying. And then be willing to walk away from it with a minor scars and a glad heart and move on to the next thing.
Which is easier advice for me to give than to take a lot of the time, and I definitely struggle with the paralysis of not having it in me to finish the old thing but not wanting to start the new thing because what about the OLD thing, and and and...but when you can keep yourself moving and not get anchored down by imperfect or stalled-out projects, it's a good thing, and lets you get going on the next thing that maybe you'll finish or maybe it'll just be a precursor to the thing after that. Do the things. Start the things. See where they go, and let yourself be okay with it if where they go is not as far as you'd hoped at the start.
posted by cortex at 5:13 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
Today's project is to add this post to the Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:05 AM on January 20 [4 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:05 AM on January 20 [4 favorites]
Coming in way late on this, but the screenwriting caveat really resonates with me. I wrote a couple of unpublished novels twenty years ago and abandoned them, and I've spent the last year rewriting the first. I wouldn't call it low-effort, but it's easier than creating a new story from scratch, and rewriting has been very fulfilling for me. I love my characters and don't want to leave them languishing forever. I can abandon other stuff...but not this.
posted by lhauser at 9:57 AM on February 11
posted by lhauser at 9:57 AM on February 11
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I’m assuming this link being broken is just committing to the bit.
posted by zamboni at 5:44 AM on January 15 [46 favorites]