The Cult of Done Manifesto

#“The Cult of Done Manifesto”

I feel a bit stupid that I only just discovered this 4 year old post by Makerbot’s Bre Pettis via Sean Bonner. Everything about it resonates with me. Not in some GTD process way but in an attitude to everything.

Like most people I’ve had my phases in the past of analysis-paralysis. What-if, what-if, what-if?

I now try as much as possible to just do it. Have an idea, figure it out, create the first version, “ship” it, do the next one. If it works or is interesting, do the next one. If there is no interest or it doesn’t do what you had hoped, drop it, do something else.

From Sean’s blogpost:

The reason Woody Allen said 'Eighty percent of success is showing up' is because eighty percent of people dont show up.

And as the manifesto below says:

Done is the engine of more

OK, enough righteous pomposity from me. The manifesto.

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

And Joshua Rothaas made this cool poster. Both now printed and on my wall.