Let go, it’s OK to make mistakes
I think we’ve all seen this in movies or on TV: A writer, looking like he hasn’t gotten any decent sleep, bangs furiously on the keys of a typewriter. He goes over the page obsessively, and spotting something that displeases him, pulls the paper from the machine and crumples it into a ball. This promptly gets thrown to the trash can, already overflowing with last night’s similarly discarded work. Back to square one.
We have a lot of things we need to do – write a report, draw up a business plan, send an email, etc. Often these tasks aren’t that difficult, but for various reasons, we labor over them for hours, even days. One main culprit is excessive self-correction. It’s not a bad habit necessarily, but you’ll need to control the urge to edit or else you’ll never get anything finished. There’s a time to be critical and a time to let go.
When writing the first draft, be easy on yourself. Write down anything that comes to mind about the topic and do all the editing much later. Promising concepts will only be useful if you put them in black and white. At this time, you should just be concerned about having a large pool of ideas to draw from once you buckle down and get serious. Right now, keep your fingers away from that DELETE buttton. Remember: nobody will see this draft so it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Use this session as your chance to think about the whole project, from start to finish. See how you can bridge these two ends into one coherent piece. In effect, what you’re doing is building the foundations. It may not look pretty, but it’s strong and has plenty of support because you’ve looked at it from every angle. Once you commit all the details to paper for your first draft, give yourself a much needed break, then come back later with a fresh mind to start on the trimmings.
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