Re:Do the Real Thing
by bonoboTP on Saturday June 20, 2020 @07:16PM
(#23588256)
There are people on both sides and they need opposite advice. The overanalyzers may be overrepresented on HN, and maybe the mindless doers are more in the general population.
Still, just as in startups the minimum viable product is important, you should get to the point of a simple but complete thing.
Think of it as breadth first, not depth first. You want to go through all main stages, see a simplified full experience. Then you can tweak each part. Instead of reading and never finishimg Starting strength and researching the best squat shoes and the other details, just go to the gym, do something lightweight and something you understand, then go home, feel some of the burn. You just had a full gym experience, a simple one, but full.
I recently made a website I've been endlessly procrastinating on. I was paralyzed by choice of static site generator, template style, hosting provider etc etc. Then I decided to go ahead and make a simple version. A single HTML file and a single CSS file, like in the old days, no framework. It is a complete website. It's alive on Github pages. I can now tweak it in many ways. If it becomes tedious, I can switch to a site generator. The main thing is, I've written the bulk of the content now.
Take the time to reflect and research every once in a while, experiment with different setups and ways of doing things, sure. But going ahead and doing an imperfect but functional first version is hugely important. Writers say you should write a draft in a totally non-judgmental way. Consciously accept it will be bad. But often there just isn't a way around it. The road to good involves passing through the not so good, so you see the feedback of reality, you can update your mental model of how this whole thing works so that the next thing you read already has a place to go in your mind. You don't know what you don't know. You know what you need to look up once you have a bit of experience. The thing gets demystified.
Still, just as in startups the minimum viable product is important, you should get to the point of a simple but complete thing.
Think of it as breadth first, not depth first. You want to go through all main stages, see a simplified full experience. Then you can tweak each part. Instead of reading and never finishimg Starting strength and researching the best squat shoes and the other details, just go to the gym, do something lightweight and something you understand, then go home, feel some of the burn. You just had a full gym experience, a simple one, but full.
I recently made a website I've been endlessly procrastinating on. I was paralyzed by choice of static site generator, template style, hosting provider etc etc. Then I decided to go ahead and make a simple version. A single HTML file and a single CSS file, like in the old days, no framework. It is a complete website. It's alive on Github pages. I can now tweak it in many ways. If it becomes tedious, I can switch to a site generator. The main thing is, I've written the bulk of the content now.
Take the time to reflect and research every once in a while, experiment with different setups and ways of doing things, sure. But going ahead and doing an imperfect but functional first version is hugely important. Writers say you should write a draft in a totally non-judgmental way. Consciously accept it will be bad. But often there just isn't a way around it. The road to good involves passing through the not so good, so you see the feedback of reality, you can update your mental model of how this whole thing works so that the next thing you read already has a place to go in your mind. You don't know what you don't know. You know what you need to look up once you have a bit of experience. The thing gets demystified.