39 - Don't Let Perfect Be The Enemy of Done
Continuing our look at getting through the Messy Middle
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Photo of the Week
We had lots of great family time this week as I decided to enjoy the freedom to work from anywhere by spending the week in Richmond to get some extra baby snuggles & toddler play time and to visit with my nephew who was in from New York City for a long weekend. We capped off the weekend last night with a visit to a local restaurant and snapped this picture - which actually leads to one of this week’s Tips, Tricks, and Tools so be sure to check that out below.
PSA - Don’t Forget to Vote
If you’ve hung around here for a while you know that I think values are important and that one of my values is freedom. That’s why I work hard to never miss an opportunity to vote in elections. Tuesday, November 8 is election day here in the U.S. Don’t forget to vote by following your values and voting for candidates that align with you.
Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy of Done
I am always looking for creative inspiration for newsletter, article, and video content. Last week, my friend Hillary was an excellent source of that inspiration for my exploration of how to keep yourself moving in when you hit the messy middle of a project. We’re going to keep exploring that idea - but with an idea that works at all stages of a project and it is one the universe has been screaming at me as inspiration the past couple of weeks. So, I’ve decided to listen and share what I’ve heard.
There is a phrase you may have heard - Don’t Let The Perfect Be The Enemy of The Good. I’ve said that to myself and others hundreds of time. But there is a slightly different iteration of it that I want to share with you today - Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of done.
I started a podcast this week for NaPodPoMo - National Podcast Posting Month. I could have delayed and delayed and delayed until I designed perfect cover art and found the perfect background music, and got my mic set up so it worked perfectly and I knew how to use it perfectly…but the thing is - there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is a myth. It is a spiritual and mythical construct that doesnt actually exist. So, instead, I used some of the tools that I’ve found to fight perfect to release that podcast. Here are just a few of those:
Capture all ideas - work on the ones that align with your values and goals
I have probably 20 new ideas for “I could…” or “I should…” or “I want to…” every day. And 20 may be a gross underestimate. However, I can’t do all the things I could or should or want to do. Instead, I need to stay focused on what is aligned with my values and my goals. In order to do that, I need to get clear on what my values and goals are. And, if you want to get clear on your values, then take a listen to my podcast. I’ve got a whole series of very short episodes - most are less than 5 minutes - with tons of practical information about how you can get clear on your values.
Constrain, constrain, constrain
Along that same theme of you can’t do it all so you have to choose - sometimes you have to choose limits for yourself and your actions in order to create what my friend Alessandra called a “minimum lovable product”. The phrase minimum viable product is used in software design to encourage software developers and now product developers to get a first version of a product or app out in the hands of customers in order to get feedback so they can make the next version better - or scrap it and move on to a completely different project.
This is what I’ve done with the podcast. I am releasing a minimum lovable product. I record ONLY with my cell phone, using Anchor.fm (a free app for podcasting), I made the cover art in Canva’s free tool giving myself only 30 minutes to pick backgrounds, colors, fonts, etc. and I will only edit the podcast if there is something audaciously bad in the background - like Kona barking right next to the phone in the middle of a recording session.
By setting these constraints, I’m getting my ideas out there and testing to see if others will respond and if they like what I’m putting out. From there, I can grow in other directions.
Learn to take feedback gently and gracefully
The whole point of getting a product out in the world is not to say you’re done but to get other people to take it in. And the by-product of that is feedback. What do other people think about what you’re offering.
I could write a whole book on giving and receiving feedback (notice that could idea statement there). But for now, here are two hints on receiving feedback with gentleness and grace:
Remember that feedback is someone else’s opinions. Feedback is not always fact. I received a very helpful piece of feedback on my YouTube channel that my audio was only playing in one headphone when people listened to it. This is a fact and one that was easy to google how to fix. The same person that shared this also shared they didn’t like the length of the intro. That’s their opinion. I can choose whether to take that or not.
Never fully respond immediately to feedback. You need some time to consider it, separate the factual bits from the opinions, and decide if you feel the opinions have merit. I like a phrase in the immediate term like, “Thank you for the feedback. Let me consider that and see what I can do.” With this, you acknowledge that you’ve heard the person and truthfully said you will consider their feedback but you have made no promises and not given their feedback weight it doesn’t deserve.
Where are you letting perfect getting in the way of starting? Where is perfect getting in the way of finishing? How do you keep perfect from being the enemy of done? Just hit reply and let me know what you think.
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Where’s Kara?
A quick summary of where I’m going to be hanging out online and IRL over the next few weeks. Join me, and if I’m visiting near you, hit reply and let’s meet up!
In Real Life (IRL)
My travel schedule for 2022 is almost wrapped up. Here is where I’ll be the rest of this year:
In about a week I’m headed to Northern Minnesota for a couple of days.
At the end of November, I’m visiting Baltimore, MD for a couple of days.
After seeing my nephew who lives in New York City this past weekend, I’m chomping at the bit to get back to the Big Apple so that will probably happen in early 2023.
Around the Virtual World
Creative Work Hour - Every single day of the week, at 10 a.m. eastern, a group gathers online in Zoom to do a quick check in, a brief meditation, work for about 50 minutes on whatever they want to do, and then check out with one another for 5 minutes. Creative Work Hour is one of my favorite places to hang out online and I’ve been there every single day that I could be there since about March of 2022. Come as often or as little as you need to make progress on your work. To register for the sessions (they are free but you have to sign up to get the zoom link) and to learn more, visit https://lu.ma/CreativeWork.
Join My Course and Community - You will often find me hanging out in the course and community for my course “Facts of Life Book”. Do you need to organize your most important stuff for life’s most important moments? If so, then the Facts of Life Book course is just for you. With loads of templates, tools, and guides I’ll help you get your most important information organized. Newsletter readers - get in now for the low cost of only $25 for life!
Quarterly Retreat - I’ll be announcing plans for my annual/Q1-2023 Retreat shortly. Be sure to share my newsletter with friends if you think they might want to join in on that planning and preparation for an amazing 2023.
AP Productivity - I’m once again joining my friend R.J. Nestor as a mentor in his exceptional course AP Productivity. We started a Cohort in October, but you can join in on the next offering by visiting his AP Productivity page and watching this space. I’ll always let you know when a new offering is about to begin.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Ask the 20-something to take the photo
This tip is courtesy of my niece and nephew pictured above. After I took a couple of photos just with their immediate family, we wanted to get a couple of photos with me so my niece grabbed my phone and walked across the restaurant, past two other couples, to get the 20-something young woman to take the photo. The Instagram generation has grown up with lighting, positioning, and angles coming somewhat second nature to them.
As someone who walks up to families at Disney World and offers to take a shot with mom or dad or grandma in the picture as well (because I simply love doing that), I want to disagree with that but it’s probably a good tip.
Styling Your Holiday Charcuterie Board
I’m hosting Thanksgiving this year so I’m already thinking about how I will decorate and prepare food for our family. I am planning a charcuterie board for dinner along with a soup, salad, and sandwich bar. I’ve been deep diving into Charcuterie videos on YouTube (yes - that’s a thing). This channel is one of my favorites. This is her video on Thanksgiving themed boards.
What I Published This Week
I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up Podcast
I published six episodes this week - and by the time you get this in your inbox, the 7th episode will be live wherever you get your podcasts (just search for I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up). Don’t listen to podcasts but want to listen to this? Just visit this page and click on any epiosde. Links to each specific episode are also below so you could also click on those.
1 - The Origin Story
3 - What are values?
5 - Checking in with your values by reviewing your time and treasure
Other Articles Published This Week
October 2022 Look Back - on I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up
Holiday Gift Guide Part 1 - Give Experiences, Not Things - on I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up
10 tools for adding sound and images to your podcasts, videocasts, and other creative efforts - on Medium or Hive
Process over Outcome and Not Goign It Alone in Personal Productivity - on Medium
My Framework for Action (This is a compliment to epsiode 3 of the podcast) - on Hive
Kona took us on a leafy tour of dad’s neighborhood - on Hive
November 1st Hive Power Up Day - on Hive
Going from Level 4 to Levels 1 and 2 Podcasting - on Hive
Facts of Life Book Series
As I build towards the official launch of the Facts of Life Book Course and Community on January 1, I’m continuing to publish articles about some of the many different things you might include in a Facts of Life Book. While I’m continuing to publish them on on Medium and Hive you can now see all of them on the Facts of Life Book website.
My Digital “Garden”
As a part of the Obsidian Vault Rebuild Series that I wrote on Medium and YouTube, I began using Obsidian Publish. This add on tool for Obsidian allows you to easily publish your “in progress” notes to the web. If you want to see what I’m thinking about, this is a great place to see inside my head. It’s always available at https://publish.obsidian.md/iwannabeme
This Week’s Featured Book Note
Each week, I’m featuring one book note from a book I’m currently reading. Click the image to view this week’s note as a PDF file.
I joined Netgalley a long time ago but haven’t taken enormous advantage of that tool. It allows you to read pre-release books at no cost. You are supposed to rate and review them once they are released. I’ve been trying to peruse the site more often and this week, decided on a bit of a woo-woo book called How to Manifest. My only substantive observation thus far is the book is beautiful even in the pre-release digital version.
Diversion
Stephen Colbert is hosting a celebrity Pickleball tournament for CBS which premieres November 17. Here is the poster for it which is about all the promo for the actual show you can easily find online right now - which I find odd. One other 20 second promo video is all you get. (Continued after image).
I’m sharing this as this week’s Diversion for three reasons:
I heard about it on an episode of a podcast where the host said, “I am not sure how I even watch something on CBS…I guess I could get that through YouTubeTV.” I grew up with an antenna so this comment just made me smack my head 🤦🏻♀️.
I love Emma Watson and am a little shocked she has decided to do this. But, if Stephen Colbert called, I’d probably say yes too.
This sent me into a multi-hour diversion of sorts where I finally decided to try to figure out what the heck Pickle Ball is and Where it Started. If you want the condensed course, these two videos will bring you up to speed with the fundamentals on those two questions.
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