ERRATA - The Rubik's cubes have unsolvable colours on their faces - woops! - 0:38 James contacted me mere HOURS before publishing, and while I'm infinitely grateful, you can HEAR that I've made this edit from a hotel room, can't you! Ah well, perfection is boring! 😀 - It's not you, this video is indeed at an unusual aspect ratio (16:10 I think) my very high-tech production pipeline requires I use my machine's resolution, and I'm uploading this on the road from my laptop!
@@jamesprovost James! Thank you so much for your illustrations, I'm so pleased with the whole thing. What a long walk from your inspirational poster, to my video on it, I would never have dreamed it could end up like this 😊
@@SmilingRob Yep, that'd do it! The real trick would be to carry with me an external 4k screen and screenshot THAT. Usually my videos are 4k, this one's only 1440p 😞
Oh, another life guide. How nice:) And also immediately introduced and referred to as “Cult”. Very inviting for women. Oh, "why don't you try the next idea?" **FACEPALM**
I’m too lazy to check if someone else thought of and commented this (my sincerest apologies if someone already did), but I read a story in a Tumblr post once where half of a pottery class was instructed to make as many things as they could, and the other half of the class was instructed to make the highest quality things they could, even if there weren’t many of them. How it basically panned out was that believe it or not, the group assigned quantity over quality (making more vs. making higher quality) actually ended up having better quality things made anyway just because of the sheer number they made! And getting better each time. That’s what this video and philosophy reminded me of. Thank you so much for this video, as a recovering perfectionist it’s super helpful!!!!
While there is obviously a benefit in repetition, building muscle memory, making mistakes and learning from them, this shotgun method produces a LOT of waste especially with physical objects. This then feels like a backwards justification for that. I feel the reflection and actually learning from your mistakes is skipped in favour of "letting it flow" and being done.
@@PH4RX Naah, I think you are missing the point. Sometimes thats just how things are, you can't do something less just because you are afraid there will be more waste. Ofcourse no one is saying to blindly do the same thing over and over without any introspection. It's the small incremental improvements that end up being significant in the long run rather than chasing some arbitrary definition of perfection.
@@the_crypter Check the summary at 8:30: I would agree with the first three but the rest are simply bad. 4. is about pretending to know what your are doing even if you don't, but is counter to introspection because that would mean admitting that you don't know. 5. is a rapid cycle of "doing". Start something and can't/won't complete in a week? It's ok, just abandon it. 6. You don't need to finish things. It's only about checking the "done" box. 7. There is no point in the thing you are creating nor in the process. If it's done, you are good. 8. Who needs introspection as that is just a tool for perfection and perfection is boring. Just get more done. 9. Your hands are dirty so you are right by default. Doesn't matter if you have been flailing around in the mud. 10. Who needs introspection if failure also counts towards your "done" count. Just do. 11. Afraid that some people might still inspect your creation? Destroy it and add a notch to your belt. 12. If you only want to get your hands semi dirty, blurt out your stuff on the Internet. 13. If you haven't got it yet, you need to do moar. No, even moar!
@@PH4RX a lot of your "summaries" of the points seem to be missing the point/ made in bad faith. #5 is a good example. The point was to be done within the designated timespan. The week stuff was specific to the 1-song-a-week bit, where you would be making a big mistake if you did not accept the time limit. It's obviously not universal. I'm on mobile so I can't easily respond to more, but you seem to have misunderstood a lot of the video's points.
I called it analysis paralysis; a habit that plagues me to this day, though less and less. I used to think I was a perfectionist, but in reality I was just petrified of failure. Self-improvement is a daily test and is the only thing that will never be done. Fantastic video, thank you.
The line sends such an incredible message to perfectionists. I have always struggled with getting things done because I was afraid of the final version not living up to my expectations. Just accepting everything is a draft gets rid of that misconception immediately.
I'm a product manager and I'm in love with the agile ethos of "fail fast", it's made me so much more zen in my personal life as well. Everything is a draft is such an efficient and effective phrasing for that concept, I want it as a poster for my office
I got news of another failure in a string of failures yesterday and I've been in a zombie-like state all day. Your video has changed that. I still feel like crap but now I have enough energy to get up and try again. Thanks
‘Life is full of small minded people with narrow horizons. And they’re all trying to kill you. They’ll kill you with words like: “Be reasonable”, “Play it safe”, and the worst: “Stay in your lane”‘ I needed to hear this today. Thank you for igniting my waning inspiration 🖤
The problem is when those small minded people have ACTUAL power to (potentially) kill you if you don't comply. Try to go outside the bounds of what society allows? To jail with you! Your parents don't approve of your ambitions even though you're 30 and they legally have no power over your life even if you still live with them? Die from homelessness! And so on. Not everyone has the right to full autonomy over their own lives, sadly...
@@NoBoilerplate well wherever they're from, thanks for reproducing them here and making me convert to the cult. Step two for me will be building an altar on which to sacrifice my perfectionism 🤫
And they discribe us as idiots, it hurts our feelings but our way of thinking is more important than their words We are humans with flaws, everything we do they will mock but its important for us no matter how mush silly is for them If you think those parasites are right your life will lost its meaning because everything you do is a joke and you will become insane Damn still hurts I just wish those small minded people get out of way, they only deserve to no one hear them
I tried writing a book called “Learning Rust through Advent of Code”. I got through the first 10 challenges, only to find that I have nothing more to say. I’ve been wracking my brain for two weeks trying to contrive new things to teach through these challenges. But now, I’ll just accept that I’m done. I’m using what I learned in writing the book to make an axum web server for work, so I have more important projects to do.
@@cgriffin522I don’t think it needs to be qualified. I’m sure lots of people do no more than two weeks and stop doing AoC every year. I know I’m one of them.
Aye I would read that book with even more enthusiasm, now that I know the author believes he has said all that needed to be said in the first 10 challenges
This is honestly, hand on heart, the best video I have seen on this platform. If I could recommend to anyone to only watch one video on this whole platform, It would be this one. Such a clear and concise way of telling imbedded with personal experience that makes it feel authentic and raw. It is rare to see such genuineness in a self-help video.
“Perfection is boring,” yet that’s what defines some of us. I’ve long been aware of the weight and peril inherent in the pursuit of perfection, yet I found myself trapped in an unending cycle. Your video has provided me with a tremendous sense of relief and insight. Thank you so much.
I would say doing things poorly is boring. What is the point of doing something if it's not perfect? Granted this view does not work for prototypes / drafts of certain works but in mechanical / electrical assembly I feel it is essential.
@@soklot I think one way this philosophy can mesh with works that demand "perfection" is working in stages. Don't stress over the minutiae when there are other elements of the project that need to get "done". Consider QA and revision of the prior drafts as separate discrete stages and get them "done". Before a mechanical or electrical assembly work goes into production or gets fully implemented many of these stages are drafted as prototypes and the end result is that you converge on something that's 99% perfect
As a procrastinating perfectionist ADHDer, these are lessons I've had to learn the hard way. To have them broken down into these 13 principles and expressed so succinctyl and clearly is really helpful. Thanks for sharing!
3:54 The idea of "discarding" everything and starting fresh is one that ALWAYS worked for me for the last 10 years. It's amazing how just giving up, taking a break and then try again in a different way, works marvelously. It gets stuff done and even better, it's faster than the first time.
In the software world, I was taught an extreme version of this method when I talked to some clever ThoughtWorks developers. They have this method of debugging: Stash and try again. I'd ask them to help me with whatever I was struggling with, and if after trivial poking we couldn't figure it out, they'd say "stash your changes and start again". And we'd re-write everything from the last commit (we were committing very regularly, often as soon as tests passed). INEVITABLY, the act of discarding and starting fresh just resolved the problem - they didn't usually have to help me at all!
Totally agree. Fixing things is hard. And you get to apply everything you've learned through your mistakes so far. Starting from scratch is so powerful.
no joke your channel is something that helps me improve as a person not to put a burden on your shoulders but rather saying that it feels like good company
Thank you so much, that's very kind of you to say. I'm excited that I have this platform, and I'm trying to help as many as I can, with what little I know has helped me :-)
That's likely not a good tip, but as someone who has been feeling a great burnout and depression for a while, I'm very glad to run into your channel and cult. Keep up the good fight!
I wish this would have been released earlier. It is something that I really needed to hear, as someone who can't feel like I finished projects until they are perfect.
Man... This video feels like it has been made especially for me. Since my early twenties I felt dissatisfied with everything I did, couldn't get anything done, felt I wasn't the best version of myself... Because of that I let go of ideas and projects, because thought I didn't have the skills to complete them with perfection. That passiveness and paralysis before perfection infected every part of me. Now I'm 25 and I keep trying to better myself: GTD, Notion, Obsidian... everything I try doesn't work, or at least doesn't work for me. I'll try to apply these principles to my life and projects. Thanks for this video, I cried a couple times while I watched it, I loved it.
@@cornettojordgubb I have thought several times about this, would be cool to have a reason for the indecisiveness and inability to do anything. Maybe this sounds stupid, but I never considered me "good enough" to have ADHD. I'll look into it, thanks for taking your time to respond!
@@cornettojordgubb +1 on investigation. Naming something is powerful, and you can start to search for coping mechanisms. I did a video on mine, if it's useful ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
7:08 "Failure is good" I think if I can go back in time I'll tell this to myself I used to be trapped in what people would say is a "tutorial hell" during the beginning of my programming career. I think that quote illustrate clearly my experience during that period, in that: You can't make mistake by following a tutorial, and that once I drop it and just "made something" it teaches me way more than anything
I agree 100%. Doing tutorials is almost a complete waste of time in my mind because you don't create anything. You're just going through the motions while your brain is standing idly by. Use your brain to build it and it may not be worth anything by the time you would have completed that tutorial but at least you'll know what you're doing, so you can find the next step.
This is one of the reasons why the rust book (and rustlings) are such effective tutorials IMO - they don't take you straight from working code to working code to working code, they both insert intentional errors that you discover while going through the tutorials
Interesting, in my tutorials and demos I’ve always demonstrated what could go wrong equally as much as how to do the actually thing. I suppose I have already been through this pain and want people to be aware of the obstacles and how to avoid them, how to debugged them, etc. Now that you mention it, most tutorials lack this and it should be standard to include these “unhappy paths”. Similar to how a lot of coworkers will only write automated test for the happy path, but will often skip scenarios for when validation fails, an exception is thrown, etc because “it’s not important” or “there’s no time”.
@@ThaJay That way you can waste months on shit that you could have figured out in 5min. Watching a ton of tutorials is entirely reasonable when you're starting out with sth.
@@MrCmon113 Everyone has their own style of learning but when I'm looking for answers I want them in text so I can skip the fluff and go straight for what I'm looking for.
I love your videos man. There's tons of resources to learn all of these things in depth. Whole books, 45 minute videos, long articles... But you have to go _seeking_ for them, and then still the depth of the resources can be overwhelming. I love how you introduce all of these topics in an engaging manner, without overwhelming anyone and giving us the taste we needed to dig further.
One thing that helped me a lot was to learn to aim for "Good enough" and not chase perfection I love that because the definition of "Good enough" can vary wildly from project to project. Anything ranging from quick and dirty to super clean and polished can be good enough. Whatever is enough to make the product good is good enough
@@con-f-use nobody is perfect, nobody can write perfect code at once writing "good enough" code, and refactoring it later, if possible, is way better than being bottlenecked by the fact that you are not God.
@@arjix8738 Refactoring is editing. The video clearly states "there is no editing stage" and tells you to throw everything away. Of course, perfection unattainable and at some point you have to stop and release. However, not aiming for perfection and re-inventing the wheel is so often why (especially in software) we have so many shitty things, and so many of them are unnecessary and just muddy the water, you have to wade through to find the gems. It seems like terrible advice from people who have no idea how large-scale, high-risk projects are done so they don't end in disaster. Imagine people had this kind of attitude when designing critical infrastructure, cryptography, nuclear power plants or planes. "Just put it out there, yolo! If it crashes, no biggie, will do better next time". Oh wait, some do with disastrous consequences! Of course there needs to be a middle ground! Where exactly that is depends on the risks. But please err towards perfection, when there's other people involved. Also, a more philosophical take: you tend to stay on the surface, when you're already happy with the first working prototype and you waste a lot of work without learning anything when you start over from scratch. Experience with a lot simple, uncritical problems doesn't necessary translate to the opposite and you miss a lot of stuff by not being a little obsessed with the details.
Boilerplate is unnecessary, I try to keep it the minimum possible up-top! Alternatively, let me know what you think of the following: "hey hey youtube it's ya boi no boilerplate coming at you with another fast technical video, so smash that subscribe button, ring that notification bell AND LET'S GET INTO IT" ugh lol
@@NoBoilerplate the minimum (and imo optimum) would be to start the video at 0:05. but i get it if its meant as a sort of advertisement for the rest of the channel
The unsolvable Rubik's cubes weirdly illustrate the strength of this philosophy. In a parallel universe, you took a long time to make this video, found the problem, and then found or made a tool to check if a cube was solvable, but you didn't do that. You hit the main points, finished the action phase, and now you both have an informative video, and can make more videos with more knowledge, as opposed to having one perfect video 1-2 weeks from now. I wouldn't want everything made this way. I like my planes and bridges painstakingly precise, but for projects with low or zero penalty for failure, this mindset probably produces better results over time.
Heh, yeah it's a great metaphor! I think that when STARTING out designing a plane, you'd get to the end steps faster if you used this method. Same with bridges, they build scale models for this reason too, I think. I interpret the CoD as encouraging rapid prototyping and experimentation, which if you look back 100 years, is what the aeroplane industry was doing! Naturally, we must take the greatest of care where human life is on the line, and they are other frameworks when you get to that stage.
@@davidr1431 I think what Bre and Kio were going for is that you should ACT like there's no editing stage. Do your best work each time, assuming that everything you do is final, because more often than not, it is.
Thanks, just a pure human "thank you", because you always seem on point to help with the problem I currently struggle with. This approach looks very refreshing, I'll try to follow the advice.
I'm so pleased to help! If you would like to stop by, my discord has lots (thousands!) of like-minded folks talking about productivity and so on. I'm even there sometimes!
@@NoBoilerplate thanks, I'll check it out. I find big groups of people excruciatingly difficult to talk with, but I'll read it once in a while for sure (:
@@ishmuro I sympathise! As a mental-health-positive server, there's a few places where you can have smaller conversations, I have a forum set-up, and two special channels, #chillout-lounge and #soliloquy where you can only message once per minute and hour, respectively.
Great video! The only issue I found (and I might have misinterpreted) is that for someone who procrastinates a lot, they will abandon many ideas/projects even when they are really important. He would start over and over again from scratch and never get to a point where an idea is fully developed or until he fixes his procrastination. If on the other hand he never abandons it he might make progress slowly and eventually get a working project
Yes, a reasonable issue. I think the problem that rule tries to solve is where you have 10 ideas, but struggle for too long on the first one, when actually idea #4 would have really resonated for you. Authors say that our best books are trapped behind our worst!
This is profound. This idea that muses give us an idea and we're supposed to hack it out any way possible while it still holds energy for us, it hits deep. And the idea that it's supposed to be as unrefined as my level of competence or lack thereof while the idea still has energy makes me happy. It's very freeing. It was never supposed to be perfect, if it was it never would have chosen me. It just wants to be free. That's light and energizing.
I really needed to hear this. In 2014 I started making RUclips videos. I was never fast at it, nor did I particularly care to churn out content quickly. But I found genuine, authentic joy in creating the videos I ended up making. Some of my early videos were met with positive reception, which was encouraging, and one in particular did quite well, much better than I had ever anticipated it would. It sounds dramatic, but it felt like I'd found what I'm supposed to do. Not long after that, I became struck with a kind of creative paralysis when it came to making videos. I knew it's what I wanted to do more of, but I was so afraid of making a bad video, and so obsessed with attaining "perfection", I would rarely even begin writing one. I felt like I had no ideas, but in reality I was just terrified of even pursuing the ideas that sprang to my mind, because they wouldn't "fit" with my channel, or they were overdone, or "what do I know about that topic, what right do I have to make a video about it?" Most of all, though, it's the perfectionism. It's a horrible thing. So, I became creatively dormant. I went into a kind of hibernation, resting in a safe equilibrium that meant I didn't have to confront these creative fears, but in exchange for that I didn't make anything. Nothing ever got "done". It's a sad state, especially because that inner charge to create isn't ever extinguished; it's restless. So not allowing oneself to create is suffocating. For me, it meant the ghosts of these stillborn ideas haunted me. Whenever I'd chat with friends about my channel or video ideas, I'd bring up the same ones I'd talked about the year before. "Still working on it, here and there," I'd say. These half-abandoned projects would float around in my head saying "See? You can't do it. You can't even start." When I started making creative content, project ideas came from a place of curiosity and play. "What if I tried making a video essay?" "What if I tried making a podcast?" "I wonder what x would say about y, or what would happen if I combined y and z." Eventually, purely due to my own neurosis, I buried that curiosity with fear of failure and disappointment. Those tantalising questions that would feed genuine enthusiasm for a project were drowned out by louder insecurities, such as "What if this fails? What if nobody watches it? Or worse: what if people do watch and think it sucks and you're just a hack?" This video is what I needed to hear. It contains some kernels of truth that deep down I've "known" but never quite heard put this way before. I think the most important lesson I take from it is that we must give ourselves permission: to fail, to finish, and to try. That's what I'm going to do, to finally get some things done.
Asher, you've got an exciting time ahead of you. I guess the video you're referring to is the "New Math" one? That is fantastic, professionally produced with an excellent eye for editing and music choice - bravo! I also love your music and your new setup under the loft bed there. Looks cosy! Don't fear publishing: You can't 'lose your audience', each new video is a chance to go viral thanks to the simple YT algorithm. Yes, it's sad that subscriber numbers are now meaningless (though you'll get a kick out of your silver play button in ~75k more subs!) but it means we can 'break into' other audiences with each new video. The cost of failure is zero, if an idea doesn't work, you try the next one. You've identified the only blocker, and it's between your keyboard and your chair. Please let me know when your next video is published :-)
Thank you for posting this comment! Your story is strikingly similar to mine- I've been going through the same thing with working on music over the last 3 or 4 years. It seems for a while that I've been too afraid to even start. @NoBoilerplate also makes a great point when he says the cost of failure is zero!! This is the type of thing I've been needing to hear for a long time.
There are three states of being: Not knowing, action, and completion. Action is where you take steps to change your state of not knowing through learning, exploring, and work. It involves effort, struggle, practice, and nearly always mistakes. Everything is a draft. If you make a mistake you start again. Failure is good - if you don't try you can't fail. Failure shows you tried.
Know when something is "good enough" either because of time or budgetary contstraints or because it just is good enough to launch. Sometimes a project or a model will have to be good enough to review in collaboration with others, and then you can come back and improve it. Don't try to make it perfect before a review. Make it good enough to show what it does and then get feedback so you don't waste time on bells and whistles that won't be important.
All of your videos are incredible and this one is no exception. It’s so short. So on point. So specific. There’s not ifs buts or maybes here, just a consistent opinion. Take it or leave it. And I will be taking it, thank you very much. People say this all the time here, but I feel the need to repeat it. You’re one of the only creators were I feel like my time is respected. Important even. Thank you for that.
I really like 9. People get incredibly caught up in the concepts rather than the substance, letting things like narcissism of small differences block actual progress. Good stuff, I'll have to keep an eye on this channel, find more gems.
This is the first time I’m ever hearing of you or the cult of done , I feel like I’ve had a lot of these principles vaguely floating around in my head it’s so refreshing to have it etched in stone so to speak.
I really like point number 8. Too many abandoned projects just because I wanted them to be perfect, but my pursuit of perfection caused me to get burned out. Thanks
Every once in a while, I come back to this video, and it reminds me that it is okay to not be 100% certain and that the works of my hands need not be perfect. Thank you. I just wish that someday I would develop into the person who does not need to be reminded so often.
This has become one of those RUclips channels that makes me very excited when I see a new video pop up. Actually its the only channel like that for me at the moment. This video did not let me down. Hadn't heard of the Cult of Done, will definitely look into it and put more thought into it. Thank you!
Thanks for this. Working on my PhD dissertation has been feeling like a chore rather than the condensation of everything I've studied, struggled to understand, and put together. This might help me get through the process with a little more joy.
"The art isn't the art, the art is never the art, the art is the things that happen inside you when you make it and the feeling in the heart of the beholder". 🤯
LOVE that one. I often talk over people with that line, as they are telling me something I am *currently doing* is impossible. The other one I like is "A thousand people may say the mountain doesn't exist, you can cheerfully ignore them as you stand on top of it" Corollary: "Unless those people are politicians" My mum gave me this attitude, when people tell her she can't do something, she says, "YOU JUST WATCH ME!".
@@NoBoilerplate Love it! Your mum sounds like a go getter as well! Shows how important it is for us to share inspiration and positive experiences, which is what you are doing a great job of, so thank you!
This video has really helped me think about old projects because I have a lot of projects that I've spent a lot of time on and I learned loads but I never finished them so I kind of viewed them as failures but this really helps me appreciate how much more I know now not just focusing on the fact that they aren't finished.
you are a legend and turning point in my life, your videos helped me and you've introduced many things like obsidian, polyphasic sleep, lost terminal(you've also made this...) and etc. to me, and these helped/helps/will help me a lot, thanks for this! and now this video, this also helps me learn to ban procrastination and posting an idea on the internet as it is worthless.... and etc. Procrastination has always been my strong suite, but i am slowly getting rid of it by seeing the bigger picture of procrastination and my future, that example of jonathan goulton is so good and want to implement it my life and will definitely implement it. Overall thanks for everything! you are a true legend!
Thank you! You're so kind to say. This is my style of video, simple and clear, I put all my effort into the script and recording, visuals are simple. Here's a similar video, about my elaborate coping mechanisms! ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
I’ve been searching for a channel that focuses on topics like these from the perspective of a software engineer - glad I finally found it. Amazing video, as always.
Thank you so much! I'm trying to pitch the videos not just at software engineers, but all curious, tech-literate folks! Regarding this video, re-read the CoD and replace "done" with "done with the current feature/iteration/sprint" and it'll make even more sense for software! [being] Done [with this feature] is the engine of more [features].
Sometimes at work, I do things wrong because it's the fastest way to get things done, and getting a lot of things done wrong can lead to better outcomes than getting nothing done right.
I understand and respect this mentality, as long as your choices don’t negatively impact the productivity or well-being of your colleagues and customers.
Watching the video and reading the comments I now understand where all of the garbage code comes from. People being obsessed with being "done" and just copy&pasting thousands of lines of uncommented code.
I just realized thanks to you that I've followed this for a long time without knowing about it. I'm by no mean perfect, but I like "doing" things: did international travel, military deployments, published a musical album, switched career, I am releasing a video game soon, etc. As some point you get "used" to "doing" things, it's not as "hard" as people think: point 13 is 100% right. I'm always in a project and it's always fun. (Although to be fair I have to thank my wife and kid for keeping up with my BS lol). I really like your channel, this video was great.
Sharing ideas is always good under the assumption that everyone will use it with the same goal or motive as you. But in the real world, it's usually the opposite. Especially on more sensitive ideas. Choose carefully on what and where to share. But with that out of the way this video is what I truly needed to get my thesis done. I truly appreciate it
As a recent grad going through job hunting, I was in my worst mental health possible. I am always someone who thinks what to do next, however, all hope was lost for me. After watching this, I don't know why I decided to delete all of my resumes and start anew. And it have given me hope again. The concept of this video is really powerful no matter which part I tried. Thanks for making such a gem.
now you're getting it! I used to all rust, then I did half rust, now I'm doing half programming. I'm excited to see what the future holds! I'll still talk about programming and rust no doubt, I'm coding every day :-D
I shyed away from work or challenges due to my inability to accept that I will probably do it horribly and it will be a proof that I have not good well, I will try to stick to this DONE methodology and keep the channel open, good or bad, I will keep it up , no running, no hiding.
5:35 "People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. Life is full of small-minded people with narrow horizons, and they’re all trying to kill you. They’ll kill you with words like ‘be reasonable’, ‘play it safe’, and the worst, ‘stay in your lane.’ " That's so good.
What i learned from engineering is that when you've finished the plan for a solo project, you'll see a simpler form of it in the next popular mechanics, each invention of an era is trying to express thru everyone alive at the time, which filter or fulfill it to different degrees
I like how the manifesto of done is a life changing realisation for most people, and im glad it is. This is actual proof that thankfully not every bit of useful information has to be monopolised on in the form of a paid book or course. I am not here to hate on people that try to make money off of passing on their knowledge. But we should praise those more who provide us with effective knowledge and do it in a digestible and simple way, let alone do it for free. I know he is just covering someone else their work, but all love to No Boilerplate for fitting that type.
My pleasure. I actually wondered if I should sell shirts or something with some of these on - but decided against it due to the reasons you bring up. It's also not mine to sell!
Interesting video, thanks! But at 7:22 I can't disagree more. We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on our experience. That's why some people make the same mistakes over and over again, or why people that wins continue on winning. The former never reflects on why they fail, while the second always reflect on why they win. Of course, loosing stings a bit more, that's why people tend to reflect more when they loose :)
Interesting comment thanks, but I can't disagree more. We don't learn from reflecting on our experience, we learn by connecting pieces of our experience and testing those connections again in the real world. That's why some people spend years doing the same thing and calling it winning while others continue testing their understanding against the complexity of the real world.
@@bf7592 I think it's exactly the same thing at the end right? how can you connect pieces of experience together if you didn't reflect on these experiences to understand what's common in what went right or wrong? And I agree with you, it's not because you do that (call it reflecting or piecing together information) that you will "win" next time, you are just unlikely to do the same mistake which is already a huge step forward. Also this idea that we learn from reflecting from our experience is not mine, it's from the work of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey (if you google him you'll find his work on that subject).
@@bf7592 I hate to be that guy, but it sounds like you're both making very similar and correct points! Certainly reflection is good, and certainly testing hypothesises is good.
I like these idea a lot. There is a lot of life-affirming wisdom in this, but also a splash of poison to beware of - that capitalism tells us we must endlessly produce in order to be worthy. Sometimes it's okay to "do". To do nothing. To play. To listen. To take in. I know these ideas don't have to contradict - that they can be in harmony. And the true wisdom in this is to move us past the fear of the initial action - but we should also not live our whole lives in fear of rest or just being and looking around us sometimes as well. Like breathing, we need the inhalation. We can't be all exhale, all "do" all the time. With that said, I'm also inspired to exhale a little more freely now, so thank you for sharing this.
Absolutely, I hate grind culture. But I don't think the CoD is about productivity, but about LEARNING. I think it's useful to look at the CoD in the context of who wrote it: Bre and Kio are makers, and I read these guidelines as trying to get past initial inertia or procrastination with your projects - a common problem that creative people of all kinds have, especially when they are starting out. Bre, as a maker, knows the benefits of getting stuck in, and building prototypes. Kio, as a writer, knows the old advice for writers: your best work is stuck behind your worst work!
I think we may read into that rule that if the problem is YOU procrastinating for a week, try a new idea. If you're working on your project (lead times for materials seems reasonable!) then you're ok! I think it's useful to look at the CoD in the context of who wrote it. Bre and Kio are makers, and I read these guidelines as trying to get past inertia or procrastination with your projects - a common problem that creative people of all kinds have. Bre, as a maker, knows the benefits of getting stuck in, and building prototypes. Kio, as a writer, knows the old advice for writers: your best work is stuck behind your worst work!
@@NoBoilerplatein the context of continuing the endless commodification of everything, this is probably good advice, but for any important atelic pursuit (ie. 90% of life) it's one of the dumbest sounding "sounds smart but isn't" dumb things that dumb people like to say to convince themselves they have profound insights.
@@christofthedead I know what you're saying, but you've got the wrong idea! I can't blame you for that because as you say, we live in a very strange world of unnatural incentives, commodification, and capitalism, where we are all told to hustle and grind. This is not, I think, what the CoD is about, it's not for doing stuff for your boss, or to sell, it's a guide for new artists and makers on how to get started (what you feel you must then do with that skill under capitalism is unfortunate). Look through the comments on this video, see the excitement other young artists and makers show with the inspiration of this light-hearted manifesto. It's not some perfect gospel, how could it when they wrote it in 20 minutes, but it's inspiring. It inspired me in 2009 when I was just getting started, and I am so glad that it seems to still be something that inspires the next generation 🙂 After finishing a few projects, the young maker will want to go further, and the CoD doesn't pretend to have advice there. For me, I'd recommend the book "Every Tool's a Hammer", by the incredible Adam Savage. One of the big takeaways from this book for me is that you are ALLOWED to be a generalist.
I am absolutely in love with this video. I legitimately cried half way through, as a particular part hit me in a way that was very cathartic due to recent events, and I think it’s changed me for the better. Thank you.
Brilliant video, it's quite weird to think that anything that you do is essentially 'progress'. Very inspiring topic, thank you for creating this video!
Mark my words: this channel is going to grow exponentially. such great work... I can count with my hands the number of times I've commented a RUclips video, this one really deserves it. I've been struggling with content creation indecision, procrastination, creating and deleting projects since the pandemic (this channel included). Existential crises, excessive self-criticism and utopian perfectionism are a real problem. Great to see that it isn't only on my mind. Please, keep up the great work!
"Um passo à frente e você não está mais no mesmo lugar" - Chico Science (Brazilian musician) Free translation: "One step forward and you are not in the same spot". Great advice for software engineers!
I disagree with the idea that one can’t learn from success; for me past success allows me to “learn by copying” on my own work, I find success to be more effective than failure but failure to be more motivating. On the subject of one project/week I’d say it is true but you are allowed to delay the beginning of a project (we do agree that you shouldn’t delay progress or completion though). Overall very good work! Expected no less from you.
I agree with you. "You learn more from failing than you do from succeeding" is one of the most commonly shared bits of bad advice that I often hear. You can benefit more from learning one way to do something well, than you can from learning 10,000 ways to do it badly. As long as you take care to pay attention to, analyze, and build upon why you succeeded.
@@sanwayzar It really depends on the task - I really like the strong link/weak link analysis of problems when trying to figure out whether failure teaches more. As someone who has set out to create failures on purpose without repeating myself, it is very hard to find 100 ways to do things badly. You can usually knock out 20 methods with 50-60 major problems before you start having to get really creative to find things that don't work but look like they should, and that creative process then helps create a real depth of understanding that 'why did this work' analysis can miss. The battle is that paying close attention to your mistakes and carefully analyzing them is a lot more emotionally challenging, and therefore resource-intensive, for people than engaging in that same process for a success. For weak link problems learning one good process and minimizing risk is usually ok - the important part is the consistancy in every aspect of the work. For strong link problems the payoff for discovering new options through failure-prone methods has big rewards, while also letting you compensate elsewhere.
@@fastestdraw Would you be willing to share a specific case from your own life of both the strong link and weak link problems? I am having trouble figuring out where this concept actually applies in the real world, and rather than conceptualization and theory, I would benefit most from a direct first hand anecdote. Thank you in advance!
@@sampayaatree6109 I paint artwork. One of the first things you have to do with any job is identify which kind of problem it is. Customers with 'weak link' requirements are looking for functional, well polished work that meets their technical needs. Most commercial work is like this - once you have a texture or packaging or logo that meets their needs, the job is done. Sometimes you'll stumble on something special, but you won't get paid more for it, and it won't make whatever they do with it better. The other kind of customer wants the kind of thing that can be hung on a wall and make people go 'wow'. The important part is the feeling it makes. The craftsmanship and technical detail all takes a back seat to whichever skill you are expressing to create that impression. If that impression is strong enough, the piece is valuable even if you drew it on cardboard. There are a lot of ways you can make that person go 'wow' and you only need one of them to work, the rest don't matter. Most tasks sit somewhere in the middle. If you are cooking and mess up any part of the process badly, the whole meal is ruined. But if you get just the sauce just right, people will forget the noodles being only 'ok'.
Perfection is just improvement made concrete, an idea of certainty because most folk are uncomfortable with the idea of a flawed project, not realizing that that feeling of "done", when it comes, usually is a feeling of being lost, empty, or directionless, until we find our next project. To me its interesting thst the shift of one word makes all the difference in how you might approach things, not perfection but improvement.
I've been trying to create the perfect pizza for a while. Today, I created an extremely delicious pizza in my home oven by combining a couple recipes I've gathered over time. However, the sauce was a little sour, and the cheese wasn't browned in the center. But you know what? I'm done 😄
@@jessssss4860 Don't try to achieve perfection. You can only get so far with a regular oven instead of a pizza one. Anyways, here is the recipe. Dough : 3/4 cup lukewarm water 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp salt 1 tsp instant yeast 2.5 cups All Purpose flour 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp chili powder (optional, I don't know whether it gives any taste or not) Sauce: (same recipe used in Crouton Crackerjack's pepperoni pizza recipe) 6 oz can tomato paste 3/4 cup water 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp dried basil 1/2 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1 tbsp shredded parmesan Toppings: Thin sprinkling of parmesan Shredded mozzerella cheese to cover surface of pizza Pepperoni (optional) To make the dough, mix together water and yeast and sugar. Wait a bit to see if the yeast blooms to make sure it is alive. Then, mix together the wet ingredients, then add the flour and mix. Add water/flour accordingly to get to a proper dough texture. Also, make sure to knead your dough as well. Let rise for 6 hours at room temp, or let rise overnight in fridge for more flavor. Before you make sauce, preheat oven to 500F. Get out an 11 by 17 inch baking pan. We will assemble out pizza on the backside of it, so make sure it is clean. To make sauce, mix together all ingredients except parmesan over medium heat in a saucepan. When the mixture is slowly creating and popping sauce bubbles, turn off the heat and melt/stir in the parmesan. Now, spread dough out on the back of the baking pan. Put on all of the sauce and spread evenly. Then, add a sprinkling of parmesan across pizza surface. Then, add the mozzerella on top. Add pepperonis if you have them. Finally, place pizza in oven and cook for 8 minutes.
Your content here is great, but what really makes me want to get something done is your narration. You present these concepts with urgency and energy - well DONE!
i am lucky for know the knowledge of perfection is killer of motivation early in life. It is from my older friend said "It is better to nake a sh*tty stuff, than not making anything"
I get that the point is that everything is a draft and I shouldn't hold on to something for too long, especially when I don't have the skillset for it yet. But, I think to myself a lot: "What if I try hard enough? Surely, I'll end up being done if I put enough effort." This thought plagues me constantly, sometimes it works and I end up making something I'm extremely proud, or I spend days basically achieving nothing and wasting my time. Failure counts as done, I know. But it's the knowing of when something should be "done" that always has me at a loss.
2:00 That's basically how I'm writing now. I get an idea, I only write down what I have in mind, I'm not required to finish this scene yet. This really helps me to get started, especially since I sorted my scenes, so I know which scenes are unfinished. Sometimes it's just a single line of text, sometimes it's a few key points, sometimes it's a pretty long key point list describing the scene very detailed, just without caring about the exact wording or if something necessary is missing between the key points. Sometimes I write down the first half of a scene, or the core part of a scene which still needs some proper introduction and ending, sometimes I get more ideas during writing and I write everything down completely. When I'm not really inspired to write, I can still finish some of these drafts by converting key points into real text, which is often pretty straightforward the more detailed it is, or just rereading one of the basically finished scenes and maybe adding some introduction, fixing typos, adding important lines inbetween, or improving some sections I don't like anymore.
"Pretend like you know what you are doing" Whenever I get stuck with a programming issue, I pretend like I am a professor teaching a class on how my program works. As I explain it, I am basically reviewing it. When a "student" has a question, I answer it with what I know. It becomes like I am teaching myself how to make my own thing step by step from me in the future. It works so many times. I dont think it even failed my once. Afterall, professors give out homework before they see you again next week, so I have plenty of studying to do while I prepare my next lecture.
This is a terrific method, and I think why pair programming works so well! My own personal rule #3 is "No bug can withstand two developers" www.0atman.com/articles/16/3rd-rule
@@NoBoilerplate I think it's actually quite apt. Noticing this design mistake, then correcting it, are both steps during the action state to go from "unsolvable" to solved. Quite a lesson!
Wonderful video, and something I plan to rewatch again a few times until it really sinks in. I struggle over these issues a lot. Even more since entering the videography scene where I can no longer just "fix" mistakes after they have gone out. It's a real struggle for me and has led me to become more and more critical of my work, with each iteration, until it burns me out. Your video couldn't have come at a better time, so thank you for the calming reminder that *done* is what really matters.
Thank you! Yes it's a nightmare not being able to edit what we publish isn't it? I find that the most stressful part of youtube. My other work is in fiction podcasting, where you can swap your mp3s at any time, and it'll get updated in every app in a matter of minutes! So relaxing!
on one side, perfection is the thing that ruins most of my projects, but it's also the thing that starts them in the first place. And the feeling that you get when you can reasonably assume or even in rare cases prove that something is perfect is irreplaceable.
this is amazing, i understood that i was partially already living by these guidelines but some of these points changed my opinion on my current projects thank you so much for lighting me up!
That's not even remotely true. Painters have always been able to edit mistakes, not to speak of digital art. Also you can't just "start again" on any reasonably sized project.
I've come here because of the Rubik's cube, and I was right to listen what you've said. It feels great, and it replies to me for questions I had recently. Thank you for what you've done. ☺️
Do we fear success more than failure? Success creates expectations, not just of you as an artist but of you as a person. Success is putting your head above the parapet. Failure is comfortable. We must become emotionally resilient to succeed. We must learn to feel without judgement. Maybe. Nice video btw.
I'm autihd too! Yes, it REALLY helped me get started, and still does to this day. BTW did you see my 'elaborate coping mechanisms' video? ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
This is a very good thing to conceptually internalize. Unfortunately, the mindset doesn't really work when failing is not an option due to the situation being high-stakes enough that you don't just get to try again. But for everything else it seems like a very good thing to live by. I suppose I could also see it as "do 10 000 low-stakes things to gain the confidence to do the high-stakes thing"
This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Also, thank you for having put in the work to make your audio quality top notch. It really makes a difference!
I've come to apply these principles over the years in my learning path, for work or any passion of mine. So many books, tutorials, conversations and wrap-ups have remained unfinished but sure feel "done". I sometimes return to a specific programming course's last chapters, a guitar method's chapters which I last worked on, etc. and it feels not as a continuation but as starting all over again. Because it's me who has changed in the meantime. This video is well loaded. Bless you, Tris
I think in theory this is great but it can be difficult to apply. Primarily because it's hard to define the initial task and bound to a scope. How do we define 'done'? Where do we draw the line between high quality and chasing perfection? If failure counts as done how do we know if it's failed and done or work in progress and not done?
commenting in part for engagement purposes, but also just wanted to say how amazing not only these videos are, but Lost Terminal as well! I begun listening recently while working on something, and it's gotten me hooked :)
Number 4 hits hard for me. Imposter syndrome kicks my nuts and makes me think I'm just someone pretending to be good at what I do. My years of experience should make me think differently haha
5:04 amazing quote, Tris. "The art isnt the art. The art is never the art. This art is the thing that happens inside you when you make it and the feeling in the heart of the beholder."
ERRATA
- The Rubik's cubes have unsolvable colours on their faces - woops!
- 0:38 James contacted me mere HOURS before publishing, and while I'm infinitely grateful, you can HEAR that I've made this edit from a hotel room, can't you! Ah well, perfection is boring! 😀
- It's not you, this video is indeed at an unusual aspect ratio (16:10 I think) my very high-tech production pipeline requires I use my machine's resolution, and I'm uploading this on the road from my laptop!
Well done, Tris!
@@jamesprovost James! Thank you so much for your illustrations, I'm so pleased with the whole thing. What a long walk from your inspirational poster, to my video on it, I would never have dreamed it could end up like this 😊
i couldn't tell that part sounded any different
Would it help to set your resolution on your laptop screen to 16:9? Then you can screen record fullscreen at the right ratio.
@@SmilingRob Yep, that'd do it! The real trick would be to carry with me an external 4k screen and screenshot THAT. Usually my videos are 4k, this one's only 1440p 😞
5:02 "The art isn't the art. The art is never the art. The art is the thing that happens inside you when you make it." - Absolute banger of a quote.
"And in the heart of the beholder" - I think it's important to keep that in mind too.
But, thank you, I don't know what happened there, but I like it!
I can totally imagine CJ the X saying the exact same thing its such a good quote
"And in the heart of the beholder"; it's pointing to the overall context
Oh, another life guide. How nice:)
And also immediately introduced and referred to as “Cult”.
Very inviting for women.
Oh, "why don't you try the next idea?" **FACEPALM**
@@dieSpinnt Could you explain more, please?
loved the video! item 9 is very similar to a quote i've always liked: "The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."
That's a great quote!
Similarly, even the beginner cannot take a single [correct] step without mastery
I’m too lazy to check if someone else thought of and commented this (my sincerest apologies if someone already did), but I read a story in a Tumblr post once where half of a pottery class was instructed to make as many things as they could, and the other half of the class was instructed to make the highest quality things they could, even if there weren’t many of them. How it basically panned out was that believe it or not, the group assigned quantity over quality (making more vs. making higher quality) actually ended up having better quality things made anyway just because of the sheer number they made! And getting better each time. That’s what this video and philosophy reminded me of. Thank you so much for this video, as a recovering perfectionist it’s super helpful!!!!
That sounds right! The 10th attempt will be so much better than the perfected 1st!
While there is obviously a benefit in repetition, building muscle memory, making mistakes and learning from them, this shotgun method produces a LOT of waste especially with physical objects.
This then feels like a backwards justification for that. I feel the reflection and actually learning from your mistakes is skipped in favour of "letting it flow" and being done.
@@PH4RX Naah, I think you are missing the point. Sometimes thats just how things are, you can't do something less just because you are afraid there will be more waste. Ofcourse no one is saying to blindly do the same thing over and over without any introspection. It's the small incremental improvements that end up being significant in the long run rather than chasing some arbitrary definition of perfection.
@@the_crypter Check the summary at 8:30:
I would agree with the first three but the rest are simply bad.
4. is about pretending to know what your are doing even if you don't, but is counter to introspection because that would mean admitting that you don't know.
5. is a rapid cycle of "doing". Start something and can't/won't complete in a week? It's ok, just abandon it.
6. You don't need to finish things. It's only about checking the "done" box.
7. There is no point in the thing you are creating nor in the process. If it's done, you are good.
8. Who needs introspection as that is just a tool for perfection and perfection is boring. Just get more done.
9. Your hands are dirty so you are right by default. Doesn't matter if you have been flailing around in the mud.
10. Who needs introspection if failure also counts towards your "done" count. Just do.
11. Afraid that some people might still inspect your creation? Destroy it and add a notch to your belt.
12. If you only want to get your hands semi dirty, blurt out your stuff on the Internet.
13. If you haven't got it yet, you need to do moar. No, even moar!
@@PH4RX a lot of your "summaries" of the points seem to be missing the point/ made in bad faith.
#5 is a good example. The point was to be done within the designated timespan. The week stuff was specific to the 1-song-a-week bit, where you would be making a big mistake if you did not accept the time limit. It's obviously not universal.
I'm on mobile so I can't easily respond to more, but you seem to have misunderstood a lot of the video's points.
I called it analysis paralysis; a habit that plagues me to this day, though less and less.
I used to think I was a perfectionist, but in reality I was just petrified of failure.
Self-improvement is a daily test and is the only thing that will never be done.
Fantastic video, thank you.
My pleasure, it affects all creative people I think, hope you figure out good systems for yourself :-)
to be fair i think all perfectionism at its core is driven by deep fear of failure
@@bananaman-mp3 i think what you're saying is really worth pondering over it. It is probably right 👍
"everything is a draft" is such a great line. especially for "perfectionists" like myself
The line sends such an incredible message to perfectionists. I have always struggled with getting things done because I was afraid of the final version not living up to my expectations. Just accepting everything is a draft gets rid of that misconception immediately.
@@MrRastow exactly!!! I've been applying this mindset at work everytime my perfectionist side tries to get in my way, and it really helps
I'm a product manager and I'm in love with the agile ethos of "fail fast", it's made me so much more zen in my personal life as well.
Everything is a draft is such an efficient and effective phrasing for that concept, I want it as a poster for my office
If you'd work for a pacemaker company, I wouldn't recommend their product.
I got news of another failure in a string of failures yesterday and I've been in a zombie-like state all day. Your video has changed that. I still feel like crap but now I have enough energy to get up and try again.
Thanks
I'm so pleased, keep on keeping on!
@@NoBoilerplatesame here, thanks a lot no boilerplate
@@darshandev1754 pleasure 😊
Accumulate 1000 failures as a badge of honor
@@NoBoilerplatei have same way of thinking but when i hear it from someone else it encourages me, i also thank you
‘Life is full of small minded people with narrow horizons.
And they’re all trying to kill you.
They’ll kill you with words like:
“Be reasonable”,
“Play it safe”,
and the worst:
“Stay in your lane”‘
I needed to hear this today. Thank you for igniting my waning inspiration 🖤
I forget where I paraphrased those words from, but I think about it a lot!
The problem is when those small minded people have ACTUAL power to (potentially) kill you if you don't comply. Try to go outside the bounds of what society allows? To jail with you! Your parents don't approve of your ambitions even though you're 30 and they legally have no power over your life even if you still live with them? Die from homelessness! And so on. Not everyone has the right to full autonomy over their own lives, sadly...
My father is trying to kill me. So is his mistress.
@@NoBoilerplate well wherever they're from, thanks for reproducing them here and making me convert to the cult. Step two for me will be building an altar on which to sacrifice my perfectionism 🤫
And they discribe us as idiots, it hurts our feelings but our way of thinking is more important than their words
We are humans with flaws, everything we do they will mock but its important for us no matter how mush silly is for them
If you think those parasites are right your life will lost its meaning because everything you do is a joke and you will become insane
Damn still hurts
I just wish those small minded people get out of way, they only deserve to no one hear them
I tried writing a book called “Learning Rust through Advent of Code”. I got through the first 10 challenges, only to find that I have nothing more to say. I’ve been wracking my brain for two weeks trying to contrive new things to teach through these challenges. But now, I’ll just accept that I’m done. I’m using what I learned in writing the book to make an axum web server for work, so I have more important projects to do.
That's a good realisation. Everything you want might be the other side of this abandoned project 😊
Hey, I’d buy a book that said “learning rust using the first 10 days of Advent of Code”
@@cgriffin522I don’t think it needs to be qualified. I’m sure lots of people do no more than two weeks and stop doing AoC every year. I know I’m one of them.
Learning rust through Advent of Code sounds like an insanely fun concept for beginners and experience alike
Aye I would read that book with even more enthusiasm, now that I know the author believes he has said all that needed to be said in the first 10 challenges
This is honestly, hand on heart, the best video I have seen on this platform. If I could recommend to anyone to only watch one video on this whole platform, It would be this one. Such a clear and concise way of telling imbedded with personal experience that makes it feel authentic and raw. It is rare to see such genuineness in a self-help video.
“Perfection is boring,” yet that’s what defines some of us. I’ve long been aware of the weight and peril inherent in the pursuit of perfection, yet I found myself trapped in an unending cycle. Your video has provided me with a tremendous sense of relief and insight. Thank you so much.
Right on!
I would say doing things poorly is boring. What is the point of doing something if it's not perfect? Granted this view does not work for prototypes / drafts of certain works but in mechanical / electrical assembly I feel it is essential.
@@soklot I think one way this philosophy can mesh with works that demand "perfection" is working in stages. Don't stress over the minutiae when there are other elements of the project that need to get "done". Consider QA and revision of the prior drafts as separate discrete stages and get them "done". Before a mechanical or electrical assembly work goes into production or gets fully implemented many of these stages are drafted as prototypes and the end result is that you converge on something that's 99% perfect
Try to limit the scope, then perfection isn't bad at all.
Too bad it doesn't seem to go the other way around. I'm boring but I'm pretty sure I'm not perfect.
As a procrastinating perfectionist ADHDer, these are lessons I've had to learn the hard way. To have them broken down into these 13 principles and expressed so succinctyl and clearly is really helpful. Thanks for sharing!
I have ADHD too! Have you seen my 'coping mechanisms' video? ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
@@NoBoilerplate I have not, but I'll definitely be watching it now! Thanks!
3:54 The idea of "discarding" everything and starting fresh is one that ALWAYS worked for me for the last 10 years.
It's amazing how just giving up, taking a break and then try again in a different way, works marvelously. It gets stuff done and even better, it's faster than the first time.
In the software world, I was taught an extreme version of this method when I talked to some clever ThoughtWorks developers.
They have this method of debugging: Stash and try again.
I'd ask them to help me with whatever I was struggling with, and if after trivial poking we couldn't figure it out, they'd say "stash your changes and start again". And we'd re-write everything from the last commit (we were committing very regularly, often as soon as tests passed).
INEVITABLY, the act of discarding and starting fresh just resolved the problem - they didn't usually have to help me at all!
Totally agree. Fixing things is hard. And you get to apply everything you've learned through your mistakes so far. Starting from scratch is so powerful.
Thanks...
Thanks, I'm just gonna delete my company's entire codebase.
I love how your videos don't shy away from intentionally, literally trying to change lives
I hope I can do so, in a small way 😊
@@NoBoilerplateyou’ve been successful so far! To me, at least.
That's what cult leaders try to do...at first.
@@lorenzomizushal3980 hahahaha get in the van
@@tommy_asd I'm so pleased! Did you see my coping mechanisms video?
no joke
your channel is something that helps me improve as a person
not to put a burden on your shoulders
but rather saying that it feels like good company
Thank you so much, that's very kind of you to say. I'm excited that I have this platform, and I'm trying to help as many as I can, with what little I know has helped me :-)
That's likely not a good tip, but as someone who has been feeling a great burnout and depression for a while, I'm very glad to run into your channel and cult. Keep up the good fight!
I wish this would have been released earlier. It is something that I really needed to hear, as someone who can't feel like I finished projects until they are perfect.
I can totally understand this sentiment. However, watching today is better than watching tomorrow, get to it! :-)
Man... This video feels like it has been made especially for me.
Since my early twenties I felt dissatisfied with everything I did, couldn't get anything done, felt I wasn't the best version of myself... Because of that I let go of ideas and projects, because thought I didn't have the skills to complete them with perfection. That passiveness and paralysis before perfection infected every part of me.
Now I'm 25 and I keep trying to better myself: GTD, Notion, Obsidian... everything I try doesn't work, or at least doesn't work for me. I'll try to apply these principles to my life and projects.
Thanks for this video, I cried a couple times while I watched it, I loved it.
print out that poster and put it behind your desk, I did when I was your age! - link in the description!
Without knowing absolutely nothing about you, this sounds eerily similar to symptoms of ad(h)d. Maybe that is something you might want to investigate
@@cornettojordgubb I have thought several times about this, would be cool to have a reason for the indecisiveness and inability to do anything. Maybe this sounds stupid, but I never considered me "good enough" to have ADHD. I'll look into it, thanks for taking your time to respond!
@@cornettojordgubb +1 on investigation. Naming something is powerful, and you can start to search for coping mechanisms. I did a video on mine, if it's useful ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
double on ADHD...
the concept of creating a podcast specifically every full moon is kind of badass tbh
no-one can stop you!
It's SO good btw, first episode here ruclips.net/video/_SDnUVHAC44/видео.html
7:08 "Failure is good" I think if I can go back in time I'll tell this to myself
I used to be trapped in what people would say is a "tutorial hell" during the beginning of my programming career. I think that quote illustrate clearly my experience during that period, in that: You can't make mistake by following a tutorial, and that once I drop it and just "made something" it teaches me way more than anything
I agree 100%. Doing tutorials is almost a complete waste of time in my mind because you don't create anything. You're just going through the motions while your brain is standing idly by. Use your brain to build it and it may not be worth anything by the time you would have completed that tutorial but at least you'll know what you're doing, so you can find the next step.
This is one of the reasons why the rust book (and rustlings) are such effective tutorials IMO - they don't take you straight from working code to working code to working code, they both insert intentional errors that you discover while going through the tutorials
Interesting, in my tutorials and demos I’ve always demonstrated what could go wrong equally as much as how to do the actually thing. I suppose I have already been through this pain and want people to be aware of the obstacles and how to avoid them, how to debugged them, etc.
Now that you mention it, most tutorials lack this and it should be standard to include these “unhappy paths”. Similar to how a lot of coworkers will only write automated test for the happy path, but will often skip scenarios for when validation fails, an exception is thrown, etc because “it’s not important” or “there’s no time”.
@@ThaJay
That way you can waste months on shit that you could have figured out in 5min.
Watching a ton of tutorials is entirely reasonable when you're starting out with sth.
@@MrCmon113 Everyone has their own style of learning but when I'm looking for answers I want them in text so I can skip the fluff and go straight for what I'm looking for.
I love your videos man.
There's tons of resources to learn all of these things in depth. Whole books, 45 minute videos, long articles...
But you have to go _seeking_ for them, and then still the depth of the resources can be overwhelming.
I love how you introduce all of these topics in an engaging manner, without overwhelming anyone and giving us the taste we needed to dig further.
That's so kind of you to say, this is my exact goal!
One thing that helped me a lot was to learn to aim for "Good enough" and not chase perfection
I love that because the definition of "Good enough" can vary wildly from project to project. Anything ranging from quick and dirty to super clean and polished can be good enough.
Whatever is enough to make the product good is good enough
This is horrible advice.
@@con-f-use nobody is perfect, nobody can write perfect code at once
writing "good enough" code, and refactoring it later, if possible, is way better than being bottlenecked by the fact that you are not God.
@@arjix8738 Refactoring is editing. The video clearly states "there is no editing stage" and tells you to throw everything away. Of course, perfection unattainable and at some point you have to stop and release. However, not aiming for perfection and re-inventing the wheel is so often why (especially in software) we have so many shitty things, and so many of them are unnecessary and just muddy the water, you have to wade through to find the gems. It seems like terrible advice from people who have no idea how large-scale, high-risk projects are done so they don't end in disaster.
Imagine people had this kind of attitude when designing critical infrastructure, cryptography, nuclear power plants or planes. "Just put it out there, yolo! If it crashes, no biggie, will do better next time". Oh wait, some do with disastrous consequences!
Of course there needs to be a middle ground! Where exactly that is depends on the risks. But please err towards perfection, when there's other people involved. Also, a more philosophical take: you tend to stay on the surface, when you're already happy with the first working prototype and you waste a lot of work without learning anything when you start over from scratch. Experience with a lot simple, uncritical problems doesn't necessary translate to the opposite and you miss a lot of stuff by not being a little obsessed with the details.
I have to agree unfortunately because the alternative is you never ever do it. It becomes a self sabotaging cycle.
@@con-f-use the video clearly states that if it ain't complete then it is a draft.
Hold on. These videos all start with the same introduction. Almost like it's some boilerplate
Boilerplate is unnecessary, I try to keep it the minimum possible up-top!
Alternatively, let me know what you think of the following:
"hey hey youtube it's ya boi no boilerplate coming at you with another fast technical video, so smash that subscribe button, ring that notification bell AND LET'S GET INTO IT" ugh lol
No, it’s just a function declaration !
So essentially it's a trait that's implemented for each video.😊
@@NoBoilerplate the minimum (and imo optimum) would be to start the video at 0:05. but i get it if its meant as a sort of advertisement for the rest of the channel
it is a macro that gets expanded at compile time
The unsolvable Rubik's cubes weirdly illustrate the strength of this philosophy. In a parallel universe, you took a long time to make this video, found the problem, and then found or made a tool to check if a cube was solvable, but you didn't do that. You hit the main points, finished the action phase, and now you both have an informative video, and can make more videos with more knowledge, as opposed to having one perfect video 1-2 weeks from now.
I wouldn't want everything made this way. I like my planes and bridges painstakingly precise, but for projects with low or zero penalty for failure, this mindset probably produces better results over time.
Heh, yeah it's a great metaphor!
I think that when STARTING out designing a plane, you'd get to the end steps faster if you used this method. Same with bridges, they build scale models for this reason too, I think.
I interpret the CoD as encouraging rapid prototyping and experimentation, which if you look back 100 years, is what the aeroplane industry was doing!
Naturally, we must take the greatest of care where human life is on the line, and they are other frameworks when you get to that stage.
Because some things have no editing does it mean that all things have no editing?
@@davidr1431 I think what Bre and Kio were going for is that you should ACT like there's no editing stage. Do your best work each time, assuming that everything you do is final, because more often than not, it is.
@@NoBoilerplate I like this, yes.
Thanks, just a pure human "thank you", because you always seem on point to help with the problem I currently struggle with. This approach looks very refreshing, I'll try to follow the advice.
I'm so pleased to help! If you would like to stop by, my discord has lots (thousands!) of like-minded folks talking about productivity and so on. I'm even there sometimes!
@@NoBoilerplate thanks, I'll check it out. I find big groups of people excruciatingly difficult to talk with, but I'll read it once in a while for sure (:
@@ishmuro I sympathise! As a mental-health-positive server, there's a few places where you can have smaller conversations, I have a forum set-up, and two special channels, #chillout-lounge and #soliloquy where you can only message once per minute and hour, respectively.
Great video! The only issue I found (and I might have misinterpreted) is that for someone who procrastinates a lot, they will abandon many ideas/projects even when they are really important. He would start over and over again from scratch and never get to a point where an idea is fully developed or until he fixes his procrastination. If on the other hand he never abandons it he might make progress slowly and eventually get a working project
Yes, a reasonable issue. I think the problem that rule tries to solve is where you have 10 ideas, but struggle for too long on the first one, when actually idea #4 would have really resonated for you.
Authors say that our best books are trapped behind our worst!
@@NoBoilerplate Got it, thanks
This is the kind of videos where you slow down playback instead of speeding it up :) Thank you for this amazing piece.
You're very welcome!
This is profound. This idea that muses give us an idea and we're supposed to hack it out any way possible while it still holds energy for us, it hits deep. And the idea that it's supposed to be as unrefined as my level of competence or lack thereof while the idea still has energy makes me happy. It's very freeing. It was never supposed to be perfect, if it was it never would have chosen me. It just wants to be free. That's light and energizing.
I really needed to hear this. In 2014 I started making RUclips videos. I was never fast at it, nor did I particularly care to churn out content quickly. But I found genuine, authentic joy in creating the videos I ended up making. Some of my early videos were met with positive reception, which was encouraging, and one in particular did quite well, much better than I had ever anticipated it would. It sounds dramatic, but it felt like I'd found what I'm supposed to do.
Not long after that, I became struck with a kind of creative paralysis when it came to making videos. I knew it's what I wanted to do more of, but I was so afraid of making a bad video, and so obsessed with attaining "perfection", I would rarely even begin writing one. I felt like I had no ideas, but in reality I was just terrified of even pursuing the ideas that sprang to my mind, because they wouldn't "fit" with my channel, or they were overdone, or "what do I know about that topic, what right do I have to make a video about it?" Most of all, though, it's the perfectionism. It's a horrible thing.
So, I became creatively dormant. I went into a kind of hibernation, resting in a safe equilibrium that meant I didn't have to confront these creative fears, but in exchange for that I didn't make anything. Nothing ever got "done". It's a sad state, especially because that inner charge to create isn't ever extinguished; it's restless. So not allowing oneself to create is suffocating.
For me, it meant the ghosts of these stillborn ideas haunted me. Whenever I'd chat with friends about my channel or video ideas, I'd bring up the same ones I'd talked about the year before. "Still working on it, here and there," I'd say. These half-abandoned projects would float around in my head saying "See? You can't do it. You can't even start."
When I started making creative content, project ideas came from a place of curiosity and play. "What if I tried making a video essay?" "What if I tried making a podcast?" "I wonder what x would say about y, or what would happen if I combined y and z." Eventually, purely due to my own neurosis, I buried that curiosity with fear of failure and disappointment. Those tantalising questions that would feed genuine enthusiasm for a project were drowned out by louder insecurities, such as "What if this fails? What if nobody watches it? Or worse: what if people do watch and think it sucks and you're just a hack?"
This video is what I needed to hear. It contains some kernels of truth that deep down I've "known" but never quite heard put this way before. I think the most important lesson I take from it is that we must give ourselves permission: to fail, to finish, and to try. That's what I'm going to do, to finally get some things done.
Asher, you've got an exciting time ahead of you. I guess the video you're referring to is the "New Math" one? That is fantastic, professionally produced with an excellent eye for editing and music choice - bravo! I also love your music and your new setup under the loft bed there. Looks cosy!
Don't fear publishing: You can't 'lose your audience', each new video is a chance to go viral thanks to the simple YT algorithm. Yes, it's sad that subscriber numbers are now meaningless (though you'll get a kick out of your silver play button in ~75k more subs!) but it means we can 'break into' other audiences with each new video.
The cost of failure is zero, if an idea doesn't work, you try the next one. You've identified the only blocker, and it's between your keyboard and your chair. Please let me know when your next video is published :-)
Thank you for posting this comment! Your story is strikingly similar to mine- I've been going through the same thing with working on music over the last 3 or 4 years. It seems for a while that I've been too afraid to even start. @NoBoilerplate also makes a great point when he says the cost of failure is zero!! This is the type of thing I've been needing to hear for a long time.
There are three states of being: Not knowing, action, and completion.
Action is where you take steps to change your state of not knowing through learning, exploring, and work. It involves effort, struggle, practice, and nearly always mistakes.
Everything is a draft.
If you make a mistake you start again.
Failure is good - if you don't try you can't fail. Failure shows you tried.
Know when something is "good enough" either because of time or budgetary contstraints or because it just is good enough to launch. Sometimes a project or a model will have to be good enough to review in collaboration with others, and then you can come back and improve it. Don't try to make it perfect before a review. Make it good enough to show what it does and then get feedback so you don't waste time on bells and whistles that won't be important.
All of your videos are incredible and this one is no exception. It’s so short. So on point. So specific. There’s not ifs buts or maybes here, just a consistent opinion. Take it or leave it. And I will be taking it, thank you very much.
People say this all the time here, but I feel the need to repeat it. You’re one of the only creators were I feel like my time is respected. Important even. Thank you for that.
Thank you so much for saying so 🙂
I really like 9. People get incredibly caught up in the concepts rather than the substance, letting things like narcissism of small differences block actual progress.
Good stuff, I'll have to keep an eye on this channel, find more gems.
woah, the cult of done sounds like a cool cult, on my way to join it
so you leave the cult of flute? xD
You can be in multiple cults as long as they dont contradict
@@qexat Once you're in the cult of flute, you may never leave, but membership in other cults is permitted.
(I'm programmer/flutist)
@@qexat cult of flute is a branch of CoD
This is the first time I’m ever hearing of you or the cult of done , I feel like I’ve had a lot of these principles vaguely floating around in my head it’s so refreshing to have it etched in stone so to speak.
I really like point number 8. Too many abandoned projects just because I wanted them to be perfect, but my pursuit of perfection caused me to get burned out. Thanks
It's my favourite one too!
Abandoned? Or just "done"?
Every once in a while, I come back to this video, and it reminds me that it is okay to not be 100% certain and that the works of my hands need not be perfect. Thank you. I just wish that someday I would develop into the person who does not need to be reminded so often.
We eventually become what we repeatedly do :-)
This has become one of those RUclips channels that makes me very excited when I see a new video pop up. Actually its the only channel like that for me at the moment.
This video did not let me down. Hadn't heard of the Cult of Done, will definitely look into it and put more thought into it. Thank you!
I'm delighted, thank you!
Thanks for this. Working on my PhD dissertation has been feeling like a chore rather than the condensation of everything I've studied, struggled to understand, and put together. This might help me get through the process with a little more joy.
"The art isn't the art, the art is never the art, the art is the things that happen inside you when you make it and the feeling in the heart of the beholder".
🤯
Thank you, I'm quite proud of that 😅
I was just about to make the same comment. Artfully phrased, @NoBoilerplate.
this line is beautiful, goes straight to the core of being
I told the wizard in our party the old addage "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" Unfortunately, he took it literally.
@@skydude7682 Should have told the dwarf that "beauty is in the eye of the beer holder", much safer!
Great video, glad it popped up, thanks. Reminds me of the attitude of “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it”!
LOVE that one. I often talk over people with that line, as they are telling me something I am *currently doing* is impossible.
The other one I like is "A thousand people may say the mountain doesn't exist, you can cheerfully ignore them as you stand on top of it"
Corollary: "Unless those people are politicians"
My mum gave me this attitude, when people tell her she can't do something, she says, "YOU JUST WATCH ME!".
@@NoBoilerplate Love it! Your mum sounds like a go getter as well! Shows how important it is for us to share inspiration and positive experiences, which is what you are doing a great job of, so thank you!
Needed to hear this. Started my internship recently and haven't made much progress out of fear of not doing everything perfectly.
You're allowed to make mistakes at the start, you'll NOT be allowed to make as many after a year - GET STUCK IN :-)
This video has really helped me think about old projects because I have a lot of projects that I've spent a lot of time on and I learned loads but I never finished them so I kind of viewed them as failures but this really helps me appreciate how much more I know now not just focusing on the fact that they aren't finished.
you are a legend and turning point in my life, your videos helped me and you've introduced many things like obsidian, polyphasic sleep, lost terminal(you've also made this...) and etc. to me, and these helped/helps/will help me a lot, thanks for this! and now this video, this also helps me learn to ban procrastination and posting an idea on the internet as it is worthless.... and etc. Procrastination has always been my strong suite, but i am slowly getting rid of it by seeing the bigger picture of procrastination and my future, that example of jonathan goulton is so good and want to implement it my life and will definitely implement it. Overall thanks for everything! you are a true legend!
You're so kind! :-) I'm glad to help, I have lots more to come!
@@NoBoilerplate also you have now introduced me to mastodon, and i feel like its way better than twitter, thanks for that! waiting for more videos!
one of the hardest and realest thumbnail i ever saw, this got me motivated fr
Holy Shit this is one of the most concise, most beautifully simple yet profound videos I think I’ve ever listened to.
Thank you! You're so kind to say. This is my style of video, simple and clear, I put all my effort into the script and recording, visuals are simple. Here's a similar video, about my elaborate coping mechanisms! ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
I’ve been searching for a channel that focuses on topics like these from the perspective of a software engineer - glad I finally found it. Amazing video, as always.
Thank you so much! I'm trying to pitch the videos not just at software engineers, but all curious, tech-literate folks!
Regarding this video, re-read the CoD and replace "done" with "done with the current feature/iteration/sprint" and it'll make even more sense for software!
[being] Done [with this feature] is the engine of more [features].
Sometimes at work, I do things wrong because it's the fastest way to get things done, and getting a lot of things done wrong can lead to better outcomes than getting nothing done right.
Absolutely, especially if you PLAN to get things wrong with prototypes!
I understand and respect this mentality, as long as your choices don’t negatively impact the productivity or well-being of your colleagues and customers.
Watching the video and reading the comments I now understand where all of the garbage code comes from. People being obsessed with being "done" and just copy&pasting thousands of lines of uncommented code.
I just realized thanks to you that I've followed this for a long time without knowing about it. I'm by no mean perfect, but I like "doing" things: did international travel, military deployments, published a musical album, switched career, I am releasing a video game soon, etc. As some point you get "used" to "doing" things, it's not as "hard" as people think: point 13 is 100% right. I'm always in a project and it's always fun. (Although to be fair I have to thank my wife and kid for keeping up with my BS lol). I really like your channel, this video was great.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Delighted you've independently come to the same sorts of ideas, that bodes very well!
I needed to hear this. A reminder that "perfection" gets in the way when you're exploring and developing.
Absolutely. Perfection can be achieved in the NEXT thing you make (or next prototype etc)
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Sharing ideas is always good under the assumption that everyone will use it with the same goal or motive as you. But in the real world, it's usually the opposite. Especially on more sensitive ideas. Choose carefully on what and where to share.
But with that out of the way this video is what I truly needed to get my thesis done. I truly appreciate it
Yes, very reasonable corollary.
Wonderful! Good luck with the thesis!
@@NoBoilerplate thankyou! 👍
as a perfectionist I feel both inspired and devastated after watching this video, I think I have more to talk about with my therapist
I think this is good? You're welcome / I'm sorry :-D
and how does that make you feel? lol
@@litpath3633 Still trying to find the perfect response.
Your perfectionism is meaningless, first learn how to done your work, if you progress you will go near perfect, but if you dont you cant be perfect
@@Namrec_955 That's a life long lesson it seems
As a recent grad going through job hunting, I was in my worst mental health possible. I am always someone who thinks what to do next, however, all hope was lost for me. After watching this, I don't know why I decided to delete all of my resumes and start anew. And it have given me hope again. The concept of this video is really powerful no matter which part I tried. Thanks for making such a gem.
Keep going friend, the first job is the hardest, don't worry if it's not perfect, your NEXT one will be better!
I swear you read my mind sometimes, this is the exact thing I need right now.
Another great video, as always!
Thank you so much!
That was the smoothest patreon plug I've ever seen and it actually gave me joy. You've earned yourself a new subscriber.
Well thank you! I'm so grateful to those that support me, it literally makes it possible for me to do this!
Damn, this channel is much more than about Rust or programming in general. I'm sure it'll grow immensely over the next few years.
now you're getting it! I used to all rust, then I did half rust, now I'm doing half programming.
I'm excited to see what the future holds! I'll still talk about programming and rust no doubt, I'm coding every day :-D
@@NoBoilerplate Yeah, ofc don't underestimate making Rust videos. But from time to time, it's refreshing to watch this type of videos.
I shyed away from work or challenges due to my inability to accept that I will probably do it horribly and it will be a proof that I have not good well, I will try to stick to this DONE methodology and keep the channel open, good or bad, I will keep it up , no running, no hiding.
You can do it!
5:35 "People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. Life is full of small-minded people with narrow horizons, and they’re all trying to kill you. They’ll kill you with words like ‘be reasonable’, ‘play it safe’, and the worst, ‘stay in your lane.’ " That's so good.
What i learned from engineering is that when you've finished the plan for a solo project, you'll see a simpler form of it in the next popular mechanics, each invention of an era is trying to express thru everyone alive at the time, which filter or fulfill it to different degrees
"You're watching me learn to be a youtuber" That is a really nice realization
yeah! it's a funny old world!
I like how the manifesto of done is a life changing realisation for most people, and im glad it is.
This is actual proof that thankfully not every bit of useful information has to be monopolised on in the form of a paid book or course.
I am not here to hate on people that try to make money off of passing on their knowledge.
But we should praise those more who provide us with effective knowledge and do it in a digestible and simple way, let alone do it for free.
I know he is just covering someone else their work,
but all love to No Boilerplate for fitting that type.
My pleasure. I actually wondered if I should sell shirts or something with some of these on - but decided against it due to the reasons you bring up. It's also not mine to sell!
Interesting video, thanks! But at 7:22 I can't disagree more. We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on our experience. That's why some people make the same mistakes over and over again, or why people that wins continue on winning. The former never reflects on why they fail, while the second always reflect on why they win.
Of course, loosing stings a bit more, that's why people tend to reflect more when they loose :)
Ah, very good point!
yes totally agree with this. Those who fail more have the opportunity for much better lessons - not the lessons by default.
Interesting comment thanks, but I can't disagree more. We don't learn from reflecting on our experience, we learn by connecting pieces of our experience and testing those connections again in the real world. That's why some people spend years doing the same thing and calling it winning while others continue testing their understanding against the complexity of the real world.
@@bf7592 I think it's exactly the same thing at the end right? how can you connect pieces of experience together if you didn't reflect on these experiences to understand what's common in what went right or wrong?
And I agree with you, it's not because you do that (call it reflecting or piecing together information) that you will "win" next time, you are just unlikely to do the same mistake which is already a huge step forward.
Also this idea that we learn from reflecting from our experience is not mine, it's from the work of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey (if you google him you'll find his work on that subject).
@@bf7592 I hate to be that guy, but it sounds like you're both making very similar and correct points!
Certainly reflection is good, and certainly testing hypothesises is good.
I like these idea a lot. There is a lot of life-affirming wisdom in this, but also a splash of poison to beware of - that capitalism tells us we must endlessly produce in order to be worthy. Sometimes it's okay to "do". To do nothing. To play. To listen. To take in. I know these ideas don't have to contradict - that they can be in harmony. And the true wisdom in this is to move us past the fear of the initial action - but we should also not live our whole lives in fear of rest or just being and looking around us sometimes as well. Like breathing, we need the inhalation. We can't be all exhale, all "do" all the time. With that said, I'm also inspired to exhale a little more freely now, so thank you for sharing this.
Absolutely, I hate grind culture.
But I don't think the CoD is about productivity, but about LEARNING.
I think it's useful to look at the CoD in the context of who wrote it:
Bre and Kio are makers, and I read these guidelines as trying to get past initial inertia or procrastination with your projects - a common problem that creative people of all kinds have, especially when they are starting out.
Bre, as a maker, knows the benefits of getting stuck in, and building prototypes. Kio, as a writer, knows the old advice for writers: your best work is stuck behind your worst work!
My biggest problem with “banish procrastination” is when I order something for an idea and it takes more than two weeks to deliver
I think we may read into that rule that if the problem is YOU procrastinating for a week, try a new idea.
If you're working on your project (lead times for materials seems reasonable!) then you're ok!
I think it's useful to look at the CoD in the context of who wrote it. Bre and Kio are makers, and I read these guidelines as trying to get past inertia or procrastination with your projects - a common problem that creative people of all kinds have.
Bre, as a maker, knows the benefits of getting stuck in, and building prototypes. Kio, as a writer, knows the old advice for writers: your best work is stuck behind your worst work!
@@NoBoilerplatein the context of continuing the endless commodification of everything, this is probably good advice, but for any important atelic pursuit (ie. 90% of life) it's one of the dumbest sounding "sounds smart but isn't" dumb things that dumb people like to say to convince themselves they have profound insights.
@@christofthedead I know what you're saying, but you've got the wrong idea!
I can't blame you for that because as you say, we live in a very strange world of unnatural incentives, commodification, and capitalism, where we are all told to hustle and grind.
This is not, I think, what the CoD is about, it's not for doing stuff for your boss, or to sell, it's a guide for new artists and makers on how to get started (what you feel you must then do with that skill under capitalism is unfortunate).
Look through the comments on this video, see the excitement other young artists and makers show with the inspiration of this light-hearted manifesto. It's not some perfect gospel, how could it when they wrote it in 20 minutes, but it's inspiring.
It inspired me in 2009 when I was just getting started, and I am so glad that it seems to still be something that inspires the next generation 🙂
After finishing a few projects, the young maker will want to go further, and the CoD doesn't pretend to have advice there. For me, I'd recommend the book "Every Tool's a Hammer", by the incredible Adam Savage. One of the big takeaways from this book for me is that you are ALLOWED to be a generalist.
I am absolutely in love with this video. I legitimately cried half way through, as a particular part hit me in a way that was very cathartic due to recent events, and I think it’s changed me for the better. Thank you.
I'm humbled, and glad to bring this to your attention. @bre on twitter, he'd love to hear that I bet :-)
Brilliant video, it's quite weird to think that anything that you do is essentially 'progress'. Very inspiring topic, thank you for creating this video!
My pleasure - the next video will be even better, and the one after that too!
Mark my words: this channel is going to grow exponentially. such great work...
I can count with my hands the number of times I've commented a RUclips video, this one really deserves it.
I've been struggling with content creation indecision, procrastination, creating and deleting projects since the pandemic (this channel included). Existential crises, excessive self-criticism and utopian perfectionism are a real problem.
Great to see that it isn't only on my mind.
Please, keep up the great work!
thank you so much! I will, this is JUST the sort of thing I like to do :-)
Wow! I had never heard of the Cult of done before but it makes so much sense, thanks for showing me new ways to connect these idea's! :)
You're so welcome!
"Um passo à frente e você não está mais no mesmo lugar" - Chico Science (Brazilian musician)
Free translation: "One step forward and you are not in the same spot".
Great advice for software engineers!
I disagree with the idea that one can’t learn from success; for me past success allows me to “learn by copying” on my own work, I find success to be more effective than failure but failure to be more motivating. On the subject of one project/week I’d say it is true but you are allowed to delay the beginning of a project (we do agree that you shouldn’t delay progress or completion though). Overall very good work! Expected no less from you.
Thank you! Yes, each of us will be able to take something different from this idea, I suspect.
I agree with you. "You learn more from failing than you do from succeeding" is one of the most commonly shared bits of bad advice that I often hear. You can benefit more from learning one way to do something well, than you can from learning 10,000 ways to do it badly. As long as you take care to pay attention to, analyze, and build upon why you succeeded.
@@sanwayzar It really depends on the task - I really like the strong link/weak link analysis of problems when trying to figure out whether failure teaches more.
As someone who has set out to create failures on purpose without repeating myself, it is very hard to find 100 ways to do things badly. You can usually knock out 20 methods with 50-60 major problems before you start having to get really creative to find things that don't work but look like they should, and that creative process then helps create a real depth of understanding that 'why did this work' analysis can miss.
The battle is that paying close attention to your mistakes and carefully analyzing them is a lot more emotionally challenging, and therefore resource-intensive, for people than engaging in that same process for a success.
For weak link problems learning one good process and minimizing risk is usually ok - the important part is the consistancy in every aspect of the work. For strong link problems the payoff for discovering new options through failure-prone methods has big rewards, while also letting you compensate elsewhere.
@@fastestdraw Would you be willing to share a specific case from your own life of both the strong link and weak link problems? I am having trouble figuring out where this concept actually applies in the real world, and rather than conceptualization and theory, I would benefit most from a direct first hand anecdote.
Thank you in advance!
@@sampayaatree6109 I paint artwork. One of the first things you have to do with any job is identify which kind of problem it is.
Customers with 'weak link' requirements are looking for functional, well polished work that meets their technical needs. Most commercial work is like this - once you have a texture or packaging or logo that meets their needs, the job is done. Sometimes you'll stumble on something special, but you won't get paid more for it, and it won't make whatever they do with it better.
The other kind of customer wants the kind of thing that can be hung on a wall and make people go 'wow'. The important part is the feeling it makes. The craftsmanship and technical detail all takes a back seat to whichever skill you are expressing to create that impression. If that impression is strong enough, the piece is valuable even if you drew it on cardboard. There are a lot of ways you can make that person go 'wow' and you only need one of them to work, the rest don't matter.
Most tasks sit somewhere in the middle. If you are cooking and mess up any part of the process badly, the whole meal is ruined. But if you get just the sauce just right, people will forget the noodles being only 'ok'.
Perfection is just improvement made concrete, an idea of certainty because most folk are uncomfortable with the idea of a flawed project, not realizing that that feeling of "done", when it comes, usually is a feeling of being lost, empty, or directionless, until we find our next project.
To me its interesting thst the shift of one word makes all the difference in how you might approach things, not perfection but improvement.
I've been trying to create the perfect pizza for a while. Today, I created an extremely delicious pizza in my home oven by combining a couple recipes I've gathered over time. However, the sauce was a little sour, and the cheese wasn't browned in the center. But you know what? I'm done 😄
Do you have the recipe! I've tried pizza a few times and it always doesn't taste quite how I like it making it at home!
@@jessssss4860 Don't try to achieve perfection. You can only get so far with a regular oven instead of a pizza one. Anyways, here is the recipe.
Dough : 3/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
2.5 cups All Purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp chili powder (optional, I don't know whether it gives any taste or not)
Sauce: (same recipe used in Crouton Crackerjack's pepperoni pizza recipe)
6 oz can tomato paste
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp shredded parmesan
Toppings:
Thin sprinkling of parmesan
Shredded mozzerella cheese to cover surface of pizza
Pepperoni (optional)
To make the dough, mix together water and yeast and sugar. Wait a bit to see if the yeast blooms to make sure it is alive. Then, mix together the wet ingredients, then add the flour and mix. Add water/flour accordingly to get to a proper dough texture. Also, make sure to knead your dough as well. Let rise for 6 hours at room temp, or let rise overnight in fridge for more flavor.
Before you make sauce, preheat oven to 500F. Get out an 11 by 17 inch baking pan. We will assemble out pizza on the backside of it, so make sure it is clean.
To make sauce, mix together all ingredients except parmesan over medium heat in a saucepan. When the mixture is slowly creating and popping sauce bubbles, turn off the heat and melt/stir in the parmesan.
Now, spread dough out on the back of the baking pan. Put on all of the sauce and spread evenly. Then, add a sprinkling of parmesan across pizza surface. Then, add the mozzerella on top. Add pepperonis if you have them.
Finally, place pizza in oven and cook for 8 minutes.
@@ahuman32478 thank you
Your content here is great, but what really makes me want to get something done is your narration. You present these concepts with urgency and energy - well DONE!
You're quite right! I'm very aware that we only get a few years here, let's get going! :-)
For those struggling to get things DONE, this is really inspirational, thanks a ton!
Every time I judge my art too harshly I come back to this video.
Thank you so much for doing this ❤
You're better than you were last time, that's all that matters ☺️
i am lucky for know the knowledge of perfection is killer of motivation early in life. It is from my older friend said "It is better to nake a sh*tty stuff, than not making anything"
I get that the point is that everything is a draft and I shouldn't hold on to something for too long, especially when I don't have the skillset for it yet. But, I think to myself a lot: "What if I try hard enough? Surely, I'll end up being done if I put enough effort."
This thought plagues me constantly, sometimes it works and I end up making something I'm extremely proud, or I spend days basically achieving nothing and wasting my time. Failure counts as done, I know. But it's the knowing of when something should be "done" that always has me at a loss.
2:00 That's basically how I'm writing now. I get an idea, I only write down what I have in mind, I'm not required to finish this scene yet. This really helps me to get started, especially since I sorted my scenes, so I know which scenes are unfinished.
Sometimes it's just a single line of text, sometimes it's a few key points, sometimes it's a pretty long key point list describing the scene very detailed, just without caring about the exact wording or if something necessary is missing between the key points.
Sometimes I write down the first half of a scene, or the core part of a scene which still needs some proper introduction and ending, sometimes I get more ideas during writing and I write everything down completely.
When I'm not really inspired to write, I can still finish some of these drafts by converting key points into real text, which is often pretty straightforward the more detailed it is, or just rereading one of the basically finished scenes and maybe adding some introduction, fixing typos, adding important lines inbetween, or improving some sections I don't like anymore.
2:20 Oh, I always proofread and edit my scenes.
"Pretend like you know what you are doing"
Whenever I get stuck with a programming issue, I pretend like I am a professor teaching a class on how my program works. As I explain it, I am basically reviewing it. When a "student" has a question, I answer it with what I know. It becomes like I am teaching myself how to make my own thing step by step from me in the future. It works so many times. I dont think it even failed my once. Afterall, professors give out homework before they see you again next week, so I have plenty of studying to do while I prepare my next lecture.
This is a terrific method, and I think why pair programming works so well! My own personal rule #3 is "No bug can withstand two developers" www.0atman.com/articles/16/3rd-rule
i need to listen to this once a day until it gets through my frustratingly thick skull!
You've described my perpetual problem. I am constantly starting new things only to get fed up. What I need is to finish more things.
1:07 That cube is not solvable, two sides have white in the middle
Apologies, ERRATA uodated
Ignorance, Not knowing that it's not solvable. Perfectly defines the first stage👌
cube in the thumbnail also has two blue-orange edge pieces
@@NoBoilerplate I think it's actually quite apt. Noticing this design mistake, then correcting it, are both steps during the action state to go from "unsolvable" to solved. Quite a lesson!
This bothers me so much more than it should
Wonderful video, and something I plan to rewatch again a few times until it really sinks in. I struggle over these issues a lot. Even more since entering the videography scene where I can no longer just "fix" mistakes after they have gone out. It's a real struggle for me and has led me to become more and more critical of my work, with each iteration, until it burns me out. Your video couldn't have come at a better time, so thank you for the calming reminder that *done* is what really matters.
Thank you! Yes it's a nightmare not being able to edit what we publish isn't it? I find that the most stressful part of youtube. My other work is in fiction podcasting, where you can swap your mp3s at any time, and it'll get updated in every app in a matter of minutes! So relaxing!
The "not knowing" stage is categorized by not knowing how a Rubik's cube works.
on one side, perfection is the thing that ruins most of my projects, but it's also the thing that starts them in the first place. And the feeling that you get when you can reasonably assume or even in rare cases prove that something is perfect is irreplaceable.
the “no editing” boggles me
this is amazing, i understood that i was partially already living by these guidelines but some of these points changed my opinion on my current projects
thank you so much for lighting me up!
Glad it was helpful!
2:22 “Painting has no editing, if you make a mistake you start again.”
I think the cult of done has a lot of synergy with Metaprogramming and rapid prototyping in Python.
Or you could call them "happy little accidents" and make something beautiful out of it.
This actually isn’t true. Knowing some painters, paintings are regularly cropped, layers of paint added or rubbed away or smeared with paint thinner.
@@joesmith4546 "The art isn't the art. The art is never the art. The art is the thing that happens inside you when you make it."
That's not even remotely true. Painters have always been able to edit mistakes, not to speak of digital art.
Also you can't just "start again" on any reasonably sized project.
I've come here because of the Rubik's cube, and I was right to listen what you've said.
It feels great, and it replies to me for questions I had recently.
Thank you for what you've done. ☺️
Awesome, thank you!
This has to be the most wierdly motivational video i've heard in years
Thank you so much :-)
Do we fear success more than failure? Success creates expectations, not just of you as an artist but of you as a person. Success is putting your head above the parapet. Failure is comfortable. We must become emotionally resilient to succeed. We must learn to feel without judgement. Maybe.
Nice video btw.
thank you!
My Autistically ADHD brain is exploding with motivation because of this video. Thank you! 🤯🙏
I'm autihd too! Yes, it REALLY helped me get started, and still does to this day.
BTW did you see my 'elaborate coping mechanisms' video? ruclips.net/video/XUZ9VATeF_4/видео.html
@@NoBoilerplate yes absolutely.
Thanks
This is a very good thing to conceptually internalize.
Unfortunately, the mindset doesn't really work when failing is not an option due to the situation being high-stakes enough that you don't just get to try again.
But for everything else it seems like a very good thing to live by.
I suppose I could also see it as "do 10 000 low-stakes things to gain the confidence to do the high-stakes thing"
I think you've got it, that's my interpretation: This is a learning tool, for when failing is safe, and encouraged!
I like these illustrations, but whoever made them either doesn't know or doesn't care how Rubik's cube works
They could've spent more time getting it right... or they could be Done. Oh well, onto the next one
@@thetechw1zthat's fucking brilliant
This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Also, thank you for having put in the work to make your audio quality top notch. It really makes a difference!
You're very welcome! There's always room for improvement, I have plans to make it even better :-)
My life has just changed.
I've come to apply these principles over the years in my learning path, for work or any passion of mine. So many books, tutorials, conversations and wrap-ups have remained unfinished but sure feel "done". I sometimes return to a specific programming course's last chapters, a guitar method's chapters which I last worked on, etc. and it feels not as a continuation but as starting all over again. Because it's me who has changed in the meantime. This video is well loaded. Bless you, Tris
Thank you so much, you're most welcome :-)
I think in theory this is great but it can be difficult to apply. Primarily because it's hard to define the initial task and bound to a scope. How do we define 'done'? Where do we draw the line between high quality and chasing perfection? If failure counts as done how do we know if it's failed and done or work in progress and not done?
Always the problem. Much easier in physical making, painting, etc, but I think it's a good framework for any self-motivated artist!
commenting in part for engagement purposes, but also just wanted to say how amazing not only these videos are, but Lost Terminal as well! I begun listening recently while working on something, and it's gotten me hooked :)
Thank you so much! I adore making LT ❤️
Number 4 hits hard for me.
Imposter syndrome kicks my nuts and makes me think I'm just someone pretending to be good at what I do.
My years of experience should make me think differently haha
No-one knows what they're doing. James''s Rubik's cube illustrations are all unsolvable - we're all winging it!
5:04 amazing quote, Tris.
"The art isnt the art. The art is never the art. This art is the thing that happens inside you when you make it and the feeling in the heart of the beholder."
Thank you, I'm quite proud of that one!