Nonperfectionist Online Writing
Some good insights in this article on overcoming perfectionism. The author, psychologist Anna Deeds, also discusses how she overcame her perfectionist tendencies when writing online:
When I started writing online, I used to read every post 5 or 6 times before I would publish it. You won’t get many posts complete if you read them over and over, trying to make them better. At some point you have to trust yourself and accept that you know what you are doing and you don’t have to make it perfect. Now, I write a post, use the spell check and publish it. I might review it once but never more than that. I was wasting too much time trying to make my posts perfect. The truth is there is no “perfect” and you will only drive yourself crazy trying to reach it.
As I write about extensively in The 7 Secrets of the Prolific, online writing is more challenging that it looks. Here are just some of the considerations:
*constant rejection and abuse; perfectionist, nit-picking culture
*privacy and boundary concerns
*short timeline not allowing time for editing (as noted by Deeds)
*permanence of Web publishing (the things you post never go away).
For many of us, having a Web presence is mandatory, so Deeds’s strategy of nonperfectionism is a good one.
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