Do you ever stop to think about how similar hiding average work and holding back on shipping something because it’s not perfect really are?
Both actions are forms of hiding. When we ship work that is just average, we might blame the culture or the system for not pushing us to do better. And when we refuse to ship something because it’s not perfect, we are also hiding – finding any excuse we can to delay putting it out into the world.
But here’s the thing – if it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count. The goal is to establish a standard for our work and then meet it. We need to ship when it’s good enough (a standard that we define in advance). We shouldn’t ship junk, but we need to ship.
So let’s stop hiding behind excuses and perfectionism. Let’s set our standards, meet them, and ship our work out into the world. Because at the end of the day, shipping is what truly matters.