The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Numerous people have introduced me to the Cult of Done Manifesto, which holds a certain terrible fascination for me. Caught as I am in the never-ending development cycle for A Penny For My Thoughts ("The smallest game ever to take two years to finish!"), I can't deny its appeal. But as I was talking with Ryan today, I realized that for me, it's the Scylla to perfectionism's Charbydis. The true path is between them, sometimes towards one, other times the other. My struggle is to recognized when I've gotten too close to one of them, so I can row at top speed toward the other.

With Penny, it's time to head for the Scylla.  Yes, there are warts. No, it's not perfect. But it is time to get it done. There is no one right way to do things; it's a matter of picking the right tool for the job. For this job, right now, this is the right tool.

Comments

[fredhicks]

A thought on the midpoint: Institutionalized Impatience.

What the Cult of Done Manifesto seems to be about is providing guidelines for how to be impatient about your work. It's pretty draconian in its implementation of that, so I would suggest that once we diagnose impatience as the desired result, then we can exercise it a bit more ... judiciously.

The point at the end of the day is to make sure that Not Done means you're restless & impatient about it. Never sit still. Always move forward.

It's not about "What's Done?" for me so much as it is about "What's Next?"