
Something small, every day (2013) - wallflower
https://austinkleon.com/2013/12/29/something-small-every-day/
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nate
A corollary to this I include in my life is "Do your worst." I get stuck a lot
creatively: this feature I'm building is too hard, this design in my head is
too vague, my article idea sucks, my video isn't going to make sense, etc.
What helps me break through that, is just put the crappiest version out on the
page. No edits. Radical self-acceptance of whatever I put on the screen. Often
the whole thing gets a huge refactor. Yesterday's architecture document I was
working on started this way and I ended up throwing the entire first version
out. But that crappy first version totally unblocked me to get something I'm
now proud of.

~~~
daniels11
I like this quote from Ira Glass:

 _Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody
had told this to me.

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But
it's like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you're making
stuff, what you're making isn't so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to
be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And
your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of
a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.

Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work they went through years
where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were
making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short.
Everybody goes through that.

And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta
know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or
every month you know you're going to finish one story. It is only by going
through a volume of work that you're going to catch up and close that gap. And
the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions.

I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes
awhile. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just
have to fight your way through that._

—Ira Glass

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gatestone
Cognitive techniques to fight procrastination and to get control of your life
and work are important. But if your problems are deeply emotional or spiritual
or physical, the will-power will only get you so far.

My therapist says that will-power and small good decisions are like the
starter motor. You can ignite it with will, with habits, schedules and what
not. But your emotional life, and your deeper personality and your talent is
your real engine and your fuel. You need to have that in working order,
serviced regularly and filled up with energy. Or the battery of will will
drain out fast.

~~~
kaybe
> You need to have that in working order, serviced regularly and filled up
> with energy.

How do you do this?

~~~
jasonv
I'll venture that it's "the work" that's at the center of transformation,
spirituality, self-actualization. Pick your modality: therapy, AA, fitness,
yoga, meditation, many others.. anything that leads you to truth, awareness,
empowerment, accountability.

You can find references to this in recovery, relationships ("Looking for [..],
someone who's done the work..."), etc.

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non-entity
For me the problems is less of "how do I find the time for this" and more of
"holy crap I have so much time yet so many things to do how do i optimize the
in order in which to do them / decide which to do today / decide which will be
better long term vs short term / pick out ones that are futile and should be
let go".

The other problem I have in all sorts of things I do in life is getting
compeltley halted, often at the beginning of a task,because of something
small. Working on something hand on? Well shit, I dont have one specific tool
I need. Well it will be a few days before I can have it shipped. Backlog it.
Working on learning a new SDK? Oops the docs are 4 years out of date and
theres no one in the IRC channel that cam get back to me in a timely manner.
Backlog it. Bought a cool piece of retro equipment but csnt find any info
about how it works on the internet, even after engaging on various forums?
Backlog it. Trying to learn something but dont have the prerequisite
knowledge? Backlog it.

All of those examples are real and have happened recently and combined with
what I mentioned in the first paragraph ultimately just end up with men
getting nothing done everyday, despite having loads of time.

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toddmorey
I really like this Jacob Riis quote that the NBA Spurs have posted in the
locker room:

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at
his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet
at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that
blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

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btrettel
I've published several scientific translations and my goal is basically one
page of the original a day. Or if it has small text and multiple columns, one
column might be a better choice. One page a day is manageable. Just doing a
bit every day makes this seem much more tractable.

Here's probably the most popular one (by downloads) that I've translated:

[https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/76302](https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/76302)

Probably the largest things I've translated were about half of a Russian
dissertation (76 pages) and a chapter of a German dissertation (50 pages).
Either would have seemed beyond my capabilities if I hadn't taken them one
page at a time.

Of course, there's more to translation than doing one page a day. I do one
page a day for the rough draft. Editing a translation can take time
(particularly to make the terminology consistent as automated translation
tools don't always do that) and maybe I should also have a daily quota for
that too.

Pro-tip: If you use exactly the same translated title as most people, Google
Scholar will think that your translation is the one other people are citing
when they use the translated title:

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=15045678099109134...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=15045678099109134247&hl=en&as_sdt=5,33&sciodt=0,33)

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billfruit
Trollope used to religiously follow a similar motto: "Nulla dies sine linea"
\- not a day without a line.

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_curious_
A well written reminder! The Slight Edge is a worthwhile read for those really
looking to leverage this approach at scale over time.

