Fluff from the naval of my mind

I am a great starter. I love to solve problems, right up to the point that the solution is known. Ask me to actually put that solution into practice and I will, but I find that the hard part. Figuring out the solution to a problem is fun, doing what is necessary to solve the problem is rather dull.

I am a great one for starting new projects. I have many on the go at one time. This is all well and good, it gives me plenty to ‘dip into’, but as far as producing an end product (you know, something people will actually pay money for, something that will pay the bills), there I run into difficulties.

I am rapidly approaching the end of a major part of the book I am writing to accompany the on-line training course I published at the end of last year (for Subversion, for those interested) and I find myself searching for other things to do. Suddenly half a dozen other projects look more interesting. All the books that I have been researching for suddenly seem more important, more interesting. The information management system I have been mulling over for the past decade has once again reared its ugly and unproductive head. I know what I am doing. I am avoiding that final moment. The moment when a project is finished. When I finally close the book and say, “that’s it. That’s the finished product”.

I even know why I am doing this. I know that I am delaying the final delivery so that I do not have to commit. So that I do not have to make that declaration that this is the best I can produce. This, this product is what I am offering to the world.

The truth, I guess, is that I will never be happy that anything I do is “the best” I can do. I should simply admit that this project is the best I can achieve NOW, with the caveat that it will improve over time. I am no perfectionist (there’s no such standard), but I still harbour feelings of failure that I am not producing “the best” I can.

I think that the only practical course of action is to publish and be damned otherwise this could go on for ever and nothing would ever be achieved.