Done Is Better Than Perfect

I've appreciated Jim Collins for years. Good to Great happened to be one of the first business books I read. Then after I got into podcasts around 2018-2019, I listened to a fascinating conversation between him and Tim Ferriss in which they discussed sleep and various analyses on Jim's life habits.

Since then, I naturally followed his 20m rule of thumb. In the middle of the night, if I wake up and cannot fall back asleep within 20 minutes, I get up and tackle whatever is on my mind. Usually there's something—work, packing for a flight that day, modifying a special website, or editing stuff for my new youtube channel.

After a couple hours, I'll often feel drowsy and go back to bed. Maybe I'll push my alarm back an hour, having already been productive to some extent. If I'm unable to sleep, I might make some eggs or drink a glass of milk.

Usually attending to my body and half-filling my stomach brings enough relaxation to rest for a few hours before getting up. Occasionally I'll just stay up, maybe eat a full meal with coffee, and try napping later or sleeping early the next night.

It's currently 11am. I woke up this morning around 2am and have been chugging along since then. For the entire past week since Halloween, I've been doing deep work grinding out video edits for upcoming content. Such focus doesn't come easily to me these days; it's a real battle. I'm kinda surprised, honestly, that I might be experiencing peak flow for the first time in a decade...

I don't recall learning a skill so intensively since chess in high school! I'm mulling things over now subconsciously, night and day. There's an infinite game aspect to this new passion as well; I have no finite horizon except to asymptotically hone my craft. I see why MrBeast had to make his production handbook. It's impossible to quickly summarize the full-scope mechanics of one's obsession.

Do I zoom in and clip to the millisecond cutting off that next intake of breath, do I adjust the volume a tad here or there, should I try another noise filter, and is the title perfect?

This post's title refers to a lesson I'm re-learning every day in my new creative practice. Be it 3 seconds or 90 minutes, every video clip demands a long series of judgment calls and edit tradeoffs. His handbook exhibits how MrBeast had to repeatedly teach his new employees to be meticulous about such details and internalize high agency.

For the ambitious, already-obsessed mind starting out on a new quest to produce something of value, such questions are often diversions rather than the meaty work itself. Turns out little nuances don't matter so much as market validation. CEO mode trumps designer, engineer, or researcher mode.

I have no shortage of details to fix. Given past work experience, I know that listing too many small tasks on my notepad right now will only cause thrashing down rabbit holes and perhaps a bit of yak shaving. As a Linchpin, my own boss and laborer, an entire company of 1, I have to constantly revisit and re-adhere to my highest-level priorities.

I currently view myself as a thinker forcing myself to do stuff. So I have to constantly recall my personal "breakthrough flywheel" and Pareto optimal point:

Progress frequently comes from shipping good enough repeatedly rather than trying to overthink a path to perfection.

Footnote: this sleep habit recently caused some unfortunate confusion for my sister, who falsely believed I was manic and not sleeping at all due to my twitter timestamps. Sitting in a chair for 6 days in the psych ward's holding room was not helpful lol.