The Cult of Done -- are you in it? | Hacker News Reader

The Cult of Done -- are you in it?

brepettis.com

75 pointsfeross28 comments

If everything is a draft, how does anything ever actually move into "done"?

Anyway, sure, I'll join a cult whose founding premise was banged out in 20 minutes because the creators apparently couldn't schedule more time to collaborate on it. Which way to the koolaid line?

Yet, here we are discussing that output on a major news/discussion forum.

What did you deliver during those 20 minutes?

I fixed a bug at work.

Children?

The very fact that I found this on HN while procrastinating my project for today means I probably shouldn't be allowed in the Cult.

I'm interested if someone is willing to expand on the "there is no editing stage" tenet. I like the idea of there are only three stages of doing (see the rubik's picture at #1 for an immediate understanding of this).

Considering the depiction of #3, "editing" may mean "artificial shortcuts which conflict with the point of doing". In solving a Rubik's Cube, you don't tear off the stickers and rearrange them because that defeats the whole purpose of the task. Much creative output would be destroyed by "editing" which was not in the spirit of the execution: the Mona Lisa's background would require major overhaul, David would require a leaf, e e cummings' poetry would be capitalized, Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange) would get pummeled with a dictionary, etc.

Old Russian proverb, favored by a former co-worker: "Better is the enemy of good."

Not an old Russian proverb, Voltaire:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good

More typically quoted as "perfect is the enemy of good"

One of my favorite sayings... also see Lagom for a similar philosophy in Sweden.

I much prefer this approach: http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/

That's kind of good, but my procrastination doesn't seem to fall to such a category.

When I procrastinate, I'm not doing anything sensible, which includes trying to apply any anti-procrastination technique.

> 1.There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

To me it would sound better this way:

There are three forms of doing: not doing (procrastinating), doing (specific action), and done (moving on).

"Being" is not a "doing". Being is existing in the "now", without a past, without a future, with no desires, without action. It is a state that is achieved by only a handful of people.

Yeah, I'm not sure how one goes from 'not knowing' to 'action'. Seems like this would be similar to a physics puzzle of jumping states with no in-between state. That is, one has to go from 'not knowing' to 'knowing what action to take' which might involve 'studying' prior to 'action'. I realize that's not as catchy, though.

Instead join my cult, the Cult of Do-ing.

Sounds to me like it's implying that if you aren't in "not knowing" then you know enough to act and better be doing so.

The rubiks cube illustration is much better at capturing the spirit of the idea than the actual words.

I have always said that CANT is an acronym for Choosing Again Not Too -- cant.

I don't want to be overtly negative here, but this document is a philosophical terror.

I recognize that you wrote it out of inspiration and tried to encapsulate it to an abbreviated timeframe, but where you seem to want to espouse productivity and forward thinking, you have instead illustrated what I would describe as, at best, a destructive and dishonest personality.

"Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing [...] Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. Destruction is a variant of done."

Sounds like an elephant trying to run the china shop. A little dose of humility can actually be more productive, sometimes.

I thought it's a great piece of sarcasm targeted at people who are obsessed with "getting things done" to the point when they don't even think if stuff actually needs to be done or can it be done in a better way etc.

But I can see some people are seriously disccussing it? Now I'm confused.

I think this is kinda similar to Eat That Frog? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-That-Frog-Important-Things/dp/03...

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

> Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.

The perfect laugh.

Quality, creativity, and difficult problems are the devils tools!

I like the poster!

By the way, never ask this guy how to make a hammock.

to summarise, JFDI.

Did www.jfdi.org ?

Old, outdated. Cults are passe. Lame.

Whats the diff? Cult, technic, methodology. Same thing, different branding.

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