While I was working on my draft for the nth iteration—because I couldn’t remember how many times I had reorganized and refined it—I felt a sudden resistance to deleting some information I found valuable, even when they do not really add more value to the narrative.
Perhaps I just wanted to sound knowledgeable, having to know, or at least be familiar with, many things about the topic, and I want to overwhelm the reader with that.
But then, on hindsight, the point is not to overwhelm but to be understood.
So, even with resistance, my finger reached for the delete key before I changed my mind, deleting sentences after sentences until I ended up with a tight story arc.
Then there’s relief.
I had to agree with Joan Westenberg for writing that in knowledge work, we hoard:
In design, we speak of subtraction as refinement. A sculptor chips away everything that is not the figure. A musician cuts a line that clutters the melody. But in knowledge work, we hoard. We treat accumulation as a virtue.
I Deleted My Second Brain
Now, it’s time to ship the work before perfectionism kicks in, keeping my work from reaching the people it ought to serve.
jessa 