Just Ship it.

Good enough is almost always better than nothing at all. Many of you will smile and nod sagely when you read that. Sure, that seems pretty obvious. But many people fail to ‘ship it’ when they have an idea or deadline. I’m in that boat. Do you struggle with this? What holds you back?

I’ve known I was going to be writing this blog for a few months. I’ve spent countless hours thinking about where I want to start and what I want to say. I was supposed to have written two blog posts last week. I didn’t quite get there.  I think I was afraid. I really want people to enjoy and value my new L.E.A.P. blog. I wanted my first few posts to knock your socks off. I wanted to wow you. Instead?  I didn’t ship and my blog manager needed to send me a friendly reminder.

I’ve joked with my wife for years that I have more million dollar ideas before breakfast than some people have in a life but that I forget them by lunch. I used to be proud of that in a strange way. I liked thinking of myself as an idea guy. Ideas are cool. But I’d rather have one idea that ships than 10 ideas I day dream about and forget. This blog has been one of my ideas for a long time. I hope you like it today and I hope you like it 10 years from now. Writing at least 8 compelling blog posts a month feels a bit scary to me. Today, I choose to be excited that I’ve started to ship rather than being afraid of what might happen then next time I sit down to write.

Do you ship or dream? What is holding you back? What can you do right now that will make it more likely to ship whatever it is you are working on?