Learning to let go

A designers’ worst critic is themselves. The caricature of a creative person depicts a tormented perfectionist who is rarely satisfied with their work. You see them forever tinkering with different color combinations; experimenting with type pairings in various modular scales; pixel-pushing icons in a 24px grid. Perfectionism can be the driving force behind a designer’s brilliance — but it can also be their downfall.

Some time ago I realized that if I wanted to become better at kicking off personal projects and become more productive in general, I needed to stop caring about trivial things and know when to move on. Strict standards can frustrate anyone, making them take a step back to have a “creative break.” But that break often leads to procrastination, and before I know it, I’m rewatching season 1 of The Wire, wishing I were half the asshole McNulty is.

To overcome that paralysis, I knew I needed to lose the fear of criticism, deal with my insecurities, and expose my work to the world. The funny thing I learned is that, at the beginning, no one cares about what you do anyway — I had been worrying about what my imaginary critical audience would think. So I learned to focus on the things that helped me move forward and say the magic words to the obstacles that were stopping me — “fuck it.”

Damn, the audio in my video tutorial has some echo, mmm, fuck it; I’ll publish it and improve the sound next time. Oh, this comic lacks a punchline, fuck it; I’ll try to be funnier on the next one. Should I try a serif instead of a sans-serif? What about a geometric sans?… Oh, fuck it; let’s use the system font for now and change it later.

Does this sound like the behavior of a designer that has stopped caring about their craft? Maybe, but I prefer being an average designer that creates something rather than an amazing designer that delivers nothing. When you learn to manage the fear of failing, and you give yourself more room to make mistakes, you start having fun creating. The quality of your work will organically get better over time anyway.

By producing more, even if the work is not that good in the beginning, you get more familiar with the tools and start creating your own processes. Eventually, after this method of constantly moving forward, you start building good stuff. Imagine if everyone stopped learning guitar because of how bad they sound in the beginning? We probably would have never had Hendrix, and that would be a shame.

Even if you spend a ton of time planning, nothing prepares you for all the uncertainties that you’ll find along the way, anyway. So why not take the helm, pick a direction, and sail? You might not know exactly where you’ll be heading too, but it’s better than being anchored in the middle of the ocean, unable to decide where to go.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to do an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work.” —Chuck Close

My advice to you, my creator friend is: If you’re struggling to get a project off the ground, stop worrying about making it perfect in the beginning and just say the magic words—“fuck it.” Don’t give into your own worst critic, and make things work. Keep creating, keep designing, keep talking to your users, keep putting things out there—it’s ok to start with baby steps, and do a little every day. I’m not campaigning against pushing yourself to attain excellence, just avoid unrealistic goals that will stop you from being productive. Accomplishment first; perfection, or something close to it, later.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. But once you get unstuck, you’ll start having fun and enjoying what you love to do while consistently getting better at it.