When starting any journey, it’s helpful to define the purpose and vision. Asking “why decide to do this particular thing?” and “what will it look like when I’m done?” helps provide direction and a destination. Without those, you might end up just walking in circles. In other words:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
This begs the question, “why start this website and write?” I can think of a few reasons:
- Writing is thinking. By writing more, I expect my thinking will become more organized and improve.
- Communication. Writing is the most enduring form of communication and the one that lends itself best to wide distribution and understanding.
- Accountability. By creating a space dedicated to storing my writing, I will be more accountable for writing regularly.
- Self-Improvement. Through regular writing about my work I expect my understanding of my work will improve and will ultimately lead to better outcomes, professionally and personally.
In short – my goal is to improve myself. Improve my thinking, improve my communication, and improve in my work.
Knowing my purpose, I’d also like to have an idea of what success will look like with this site, and how I plan to get there.
The best way to reach this goal is by first increasing the quantity of my writing, and then focusing on the quality. This is hard. I care deeply about the quality of the things I create. I need to force myself to quiet my fear of something ‘not being good enough’ and stick to a regular writing schedule.
That means that everything I write on here won’t be some perfectly polished diamond of wisdom. Some things will be incomplete thoughts, others might be disorganized or unclear. That’s an uncomfortable thought, but one that I need to accept. I know that only the act of doing the thing – putting words on the page – will help me to improve.
This story has always stuck with me:
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
David Bayle and Ted Orland – Art and Fear
To reach my goal, I will write on this site at least twice per week, every week. Here’s what I expect to write about:
- Reviews of books or other resources I find helpful – usually focusing on ‘one big idea’ that struck me as particularly useful or applicable.
- Examining broader topics that I find interesting or challenging.
- Specific challenges I run into in my work.
- Thoughts and reflections on the writing process itself.
- Anything else I find interesting – it is my site after all.
In my own work I try and mix visuals in with my writing to emphasize a point or to help clarify a complicated concept. I expect to do the same here. While the content of this site will be primarily written, I plan to use sketches and mockups to communicate certain points.
My primary goal with this site is to improve my own thinking and communication around the work that I do. My hope is that as I improve, others might find this site a useful resource in their own journeys as well.
With my direction and destination clear, the only thing left to do is put one foot in front of the other and walk.