Done Is The Engine Of More

May 18, 2021

If you haven’t seen the “Cult of Done Manifesto,” here you go,

The Cult of Done Manifesto There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done. There is no editing stage. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. Once you’re done you can throw it away. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. Destruction is a variant of done. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done. Done is the engine of more.

Best Justified Visual of the Cult of Done Manifesto by Joshua Rothhaus

Two specific things I really love about this:

The three states of being are knowing, action, and completion. We can actually break these out further. Before a project starts I like to remind myself I’m in the pre-knowing phase. Once we dive in it’s all about learning. Once we know what we are doing we have to keep going. There’s only action or action. Finally, once the project is complete, we’re done. Finito. Learn what’s necessary and move on.

Done is the engine of more. Completion and moving on are critical steps. I’m not always so good at this. There’s always the piece I forgot or the detail I want to tweak. But, the next project doesn’t start until the last one is finished. How many times do we still have one foot in something or our hand in a pot long after we shouldn’t? Too often. Being done is how more gets done. It’s so true. It’s so worth it.

Read this graphic through a few times. It’s a killer.

For the OG post, look here: “The Cult of Done Manifesto” by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark.