Just Re-Do It.
Kevin Kelly said, “To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.”
Seth Godin’s new book, The Practice, advocates writing in public every day. In on re-doing things, Ava (aka @noampomsky) shares the value of writing drafts over and over and over:
The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once. For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something—anything—out in front of me. Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble out something—anything—as a first draft. With that, you have achieved a sort of nucleus. Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye. Edit it again—top to bottom. The chances are that about now you’ll be seeing something that you are sort of eager for others to see. And all that takes time.
John McPhee in Draft No. 4
It’s important to re-do things because ideas fly in flocks. Each time you re-do something, your idea gets better:
Ideas never stand alone. They come woven in a web of auxiliary ideas, consequential notions, supporting concepts, foundational assumptions, side effects, and logical consequences and a cascade of subsequent possibilities. Ideas fly in flocks. To hold one idea in mind means to hold a cloud of them.
Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants
The importance of re-doing applies to technology too. Steve Jobs proclaimed, “real artists ship.” Shipping often forces you to re-do your work. You tap into ideas that fly in flocks. For example, we shipped four versions of a recent feature, one a month. Each time, we got feedback. Each time, we learned. Each time, the product got better. WAY better.
Re-do, re-do, re-do.
Just Re-Do It.
