Just ship. Seriously.

Participating in ColorWars has been a really cool experience. It's taught me a lot.

But the #1 thing I would say is it's taught me to JUST SHIP, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

(And by YOU FUCKING IDIOT, I mean me, not you. You are not a fucking idiot. You are my reader! And clearly you are therefore more charming, beautiful, thoughtful and productive than other people.)

Ahem.

So. We all know we should ship early, ship often. That small, achievable goals are the best. That having something useful and publishable within a day or two or three trumps planning everything perfectly to the nth degree. That we should make proverbial hay while the proverbial sun is proverbially shining (and before the proverbial atmosphere gains a proverbial 8 degrees from proverbial heat constipation).

We know it.

So why am I writing about something we all—even me, the fucking idiot—already know?

Of course, telling people what they know (and believe) already is a time-honored tradition. It's a huge industry in the western world. Telling people what they already know—and thus making them feel good about their own prescience, confirming their belief that they are correct, and also (maybe) encouraging them to do what they should be doing—is sometimes referred to as "self-help." Sometimes these tomes, videos, advice, etc., are filed under "Business," but really the idea is the same.

But here's the thing.

Nodding along to Getting Real isn't going to ship your product.

Neither is reading this rant.

Heck, I'd even argue that the small token amount of satisfaction we get from feeling correct and justified and thinking about doing what we already know we should do is actually antithetical to putting out the actual effort. It's like emotional satisficing—it feels good enough, but with no effort, so we're not moved powerfully enough by our remaining creative frustration to actually, well, move.

So the only thing that really teaches you to fucking ship is, well, fucking shipping.

The only thing that gets you to consistently fucking ship is, well, fucking shipping. (You probably saw that one coming.)

It's like exercise: you know it's good for you. People tell you how good you'll feel for it, and maybe you even remember vaguely that you thought it felt good after a long hot yoga session (my poison of choice). But rationales and even memories can't ever be as real to us flaky humans as actually going out and doing it and feeling it.

So you go exercise. You feel wiped out, but like superman afterwards. You think to yourself, "Ah, right, this is what that feels like."

AND THAT is the motivation to go do it again. Not, weeks later, reminding yourself, "I recall, I believe, that it felt pretty good after." Not beating yourself up, saying "I should go contort myself in 100 degree heat." And certainly not rationalizing, "If I want to <insert specific goal here>, I must go do yoga again."

The fulfillment in shipping is shipping.

The fulfillment in exercising is the actual exercise itself, the immediate effect on your body.

Weighting ourselves down with "goals" more distant, more abstract, or even more concrete detracts from the sheer nowness of the real reward and moves us ever further from action.

And it seems like the more we talk about doing it, the more we think about it, the more we know our approach is right and the more we pat ourselves on the back for it, the less likely we are to ever do the thing.