Done beats perfect

Every project has two versions: the one in your head and the one that exists. The one in your head is always better, right up until someone else has to use it.

Shipping is the moment those two versions meet. It is rarely comfortable. The typo you missed is still there, and so is the page you meant to rewrite. But a finished thing, even a rough one, can be improved. An unfinished thing can only be polished.

A few rules I try to keep:

• Ship the smallest version that is honest about what it is.
• Keep a list of what you are not doing yet. It is easier to defend a deadline when the cuts are written down.
• Fix things in public. Nobody minds a second draft that is better than the first.

None of this means caring less. It means caring about the right thing, which is whether the work is out in the world doing its job.