I’m a perfectionist by nature (or perhaps by conditioning). What you’re about to read most specifically applies to perfectionists, though it could apply to anyone.
By definition, perfectionists don’t like half-baked ideas. They don’t want to show up unless they’ve given their best… and finished.
I’m not against giving your best, but I am against finishing. Maybe back in the day, finishing was more important. Now, though, it’s a liability.
If you wait until you finish, someone will beat you. Now almost anything can be improved afterward. Think like that. Focus on improving afterward, instead of finishing.
Half-baked ideas used to be a problem because no one would come back around to half-bake them again. They’d remain raw.
When I began in college, I’d try to turn in perfect drafts of everything. Yes, they were good (for a freshman), but I was putting a lot of work into each one.
Later, I discovered I could turn in many, far less polished drafts to get better results with less effort. Turning in a draft extremely early had a couple advantages.
- I was first. Showing up first meant I hustled. Professors loved seeing early drafts, even if they were nothing more than outlines.
- The professors guided me in the right direction. I didn’t need to guess what they wanted.
That’s the same for anything you produce. Half-baked ideas get…
- The benefit of firstness. Human nature is drawn to the first of anything. First means new, special, best. The first sets the standard for all the rest to follow. We don’t compare the 16th to the 48th. We compare them both to the first to see how they measure up. How often do you go with the first result in Google?
- The benefit of guidance. When you put something out there that’s half-baked, you’re willing to improve it. Perfectionists have invested too much effort to change anything. Who wants to delete part of their best idea? But anyone’s willing to ditch part of a half-baked idea for improvement.
This blog is full of half-baked ideas. I’ll come back to them later and make them better. Some I’ll never finish. That’s okay. Maybe someone else will.
I’m writing a book right now to release on my other blog, bondChristian.com (which is currently down, but that’s another story). It’s coming out on November 1. It’ll need updating the moment it comes out. But that’s okay. I’ll update it.
This post is a half-baked idea. I didn’t go back over it to fix flow and wording and all that. It’s more important for me to get it out there and work on something else for now. Maybe you’ll finish it…
