Done means Shipped | Swizec Teller

Fellow reader Aaron asked for advice on how to ship more side projects. Here's a trick I've learned over the years. Great at work too.

I've seen you working on many small projects that you have shipped. What influences your ability to ship – I seem to always be working on an idea but never ship.

I've tried all sorts of anti-procrastination tricks over the years and there's only one that works: Fucken' ship.

That's it. You aren't done until you ship. Press the big scary button, then you're done. Even if your thing is crap, even if it barely works, makes no sense to anyone but you, ship.

That sounds glib, I know. But it really is that simple (not easy). You've done the work. You've created something. The difference between shipped and hidden in a basement for a tomorrow that never comes is whether you press the big fat scary ShipIt button.

We follow that mantra at work and finished sprint 4 days early this week. You look at our stories and they look stupid small – "make one button work". But we ship and it adds up.

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