I’m going to attempt to write weekly.

Certainly, if not weekly, then fortnightly. I have 2 young daughters, I need to bake in some slack somewhere.

I’ve long been meaning to start writing properly. I’ve dipped in and out a little recently, but I’m hoping by drawing a starting line, I can make it a regular, deliberate practise. Who knows if it will stick.

Why?

First of all, this is for me. It’s a high probability that no-ones going to read this, and I think that’s ok. This is primarily an exercise in improving my communication, and more importantly, my confidence in putting stuff out there. Particularly stuff that I consider not to be perfect, but good enough.

I enjoy it, it’s cathartic. As someone who doesn’t give a huge amount of themselves away, to write thoughts and feelings down has a huge therapeutic quality. Well. I enjoy the writing, not so much the publishing. What if someone, or everyone reads it and thinks it’s not very good? That’s the point, nobody cares. This is a lesson is realising that.

I want to be much more comfortable putting ideas out there that I’m not 100% on, that might not hold up to scrutiny. I used to take pride in my perfectionism, it meant having a higher standard, that others wouldn’t or couldn’t achieve. I realise now it is a weakness. Something that I actively encourage others, particularly in the software product development world, to leave behind. It’s a road to nowhere. Or at least it’s the long winding road to something that might be 10% better, but take 500% longer to produce. Or maybe it wouldn’t even be better. I want to take my own advice.

There’s the standard cycle, which hopefully is familiar to some. You work on something, you’re pretty pleased with the result. Come back to it a few days later, and now you think it is weak at best. It’s a case of warped perspective. Once the risk of critique comes, the assumptions that it must be no good start bedding in.

This is nonsense. This is why I’m doing this. To learn that even if you put something that’s not the best thing you’ve ever done out there. It really, really doesn’t matter.

I mean, hopefully, there will be some good stuff in there too.

Anyway, who knows how long this will last. But this is the starting line. I hope it will be fun.