We’re doing a short series on perspectives that go against conventional wisdom. If you’re just now joining us, I encourage you to go back and catch the last few entries in this series.

Today’s perspective is that almost everything is a draft. Here’s what I mean: one of the reasons we get creatively hung up is that we want everything we do to be perfect. We’re afraid of judgment, of what people will think.

So, we get stuck in this endless cycle of always starting things but never finishing and publishing them because of this idea that everything we create is the final version of that thing.

I believe the opposite: almost everything you create is just a draft, a work-in-progress, of a more final version later on.

Books are really the only thing that should exist in some type of “final” form because it’s impossible to go back and change print books. But even those are not necessarily “final” because you can always update the ebook and audiobook versions, or you can release a new edition of a book.

I consider almost everything I create to be a draft. Podcast episodes, newsletters, email, social media posts, teaching sessions in my Daily Writer Club… I work to make all of those as good as I can, but I will change and update that material for other formats. The book is the format that needs to have the highest level of editing and excellence.

So don’t get hung up on the things you’re creating. Just do your best, reach for excellence, then hit publish and move on.

Question: Do you get hung up on trying to be a perfectionist?