Do it perfectly. Do it carefully. Do it when you're ready. DO IT UGLY.
The imperfect step beats the perfect step you never take.
Draw something bad ↓The rules. (They are not very good rules.)
- 1Begin with the version available to you.
- 2Momentum creates information that waiting cannot.
- 3Let reality answer the questions.
- 4Adjust, improve, and keep moving.
- 5The ugly version is not the destination. It is the instrument.
Do It Ugly is a working philosophy for moving before confidence, clarity, or perfect conditions arrive. Begin with the version available to you. Let reality answer the questions. Adjust, improve, and keep moving.
The Ugly Pad.
What have you been postponing? Sketch it. Badly. Right here. The point is not the drawing. The point is that it exists now.
Drawing needs a mouse or a finger. You can still name it and ship it.
What this is becoming.
A book and practical tools are in development.
- Imperfect action
- Momentum
- Courage
- Creative practice
- Starting again
The phrase came from a tension I know well: caring deeply about quality, and using quality as camouflage for fear. The long version is in an essay.