“Do it right!” or “Get it done!”
I’m so obsessed with Getting It Done that I’m not Doing It Right.
It’s up to you and it’s all about priorities.
I love crossing items off of my To Do list. In fact, I love To Do lists period. I like lists and I like crossed off lists. That’s a good thing: I’m getting stuff done.
But I’m conflicted: I want it off my list so passionately that I don’t care how I get it off there. I’ll just half ass it to finish it. Of course, it depends on what it is. Something a client needs to sign off on? Something no one will see but me? Is it writing a note to the mailman or buying a new car? Is it OK to just Get It Done or should I Do It Right? It depends, of course, on how important it is. But this is where the conflict is: things that should be in the Do It Right column are falling into the Get It Done column.
Just one example for the evening: publishing the print version of The Secret of Kite Hill. I worked over the past several weeks on the audio version and finally uploaded the audio files last week (yay!). I figured there would be errors as my son’s chapter, for example, was probably going to be too loud (turns out it was and we’ll need to do it over). But I see that as OK, we can do it over. At least we got it done. But was it done? No, we have to do it again. Hmm, see the dilemma?
A little before dinner I sat down to publish the print version of the book using Create Space (the Amazon company that does just that). I thought it might be as easy as a one-click option to “turn your digital book into a print book” but it turns out to be quite a bit more involved. Still, I started. I almost finished, but as I worked on it, I realized I was just doing it quickly to get it done tonight. Who needs it done tonight? No one. But my to do list, my fascination with getting things off of it. But it wouldn’t really be off it as I’m sure I’d come back to it to improve on the half-ass job I did one night before dinner.
Speaking of dinner, now that I didn’t finish my book, I need to get dinner ready for 10. I’ll go Get It Done, but I’ll also Do It Right. Maybe they’re not mutually exclusive.
