There’s always a reason not to ship. I feel like everyone faces times where they are blown off course by some storm, either internal or external. Internal storms are the head-game you’ve got going on. External storms are things you can’t control, like illness or the illness of someone close to you.

It’s important to recognise that internal storms are all anxiety based:

By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a reluctance to trade the dream of success with the reality of feedback

- Kent Beck

If you’re reading this and waiting to do some “look and feel work” or “polishing” your app before you release, if you’re waiting until you have that one extra necessary feature - this is for you. There are two realisations you need to incorporate into your core programming: the first is that you need to ship often to be comfortable shipping often. There’s nothing else you can do, no amount of extra work can make your book, your app or whatever immune to feedback. You could work on it for years only to get the feedback that it’s overworked. What’s worse, all the time you’re working on something in isolation you’re making poor decisions without knowing it - that’s a more practical fear than shipping without some great feature. The second is people don’t care. People don’t care based on how clever or stupid your work is. People care about what it means for them and the world at large. Usually that means they care for you, but not necessary the board game to end all board games you’ve been working on at the weekends. It might be keeping you up at night, it’s not keeping anyone else up at night. Don’t sweat it, don’t think — make it automatic. Ship at the earliest opportunity and recognise when you’re primary feedback has become self-talk.

I feel external storms have a different answer. Although internal storms need you to push, I’ve come to think for external storms the best you can do is pull down the sails and ride it out. I know this is in opposition to the grindset obsessed culture of today and I’ve been obsessed with rate of progress in the past - finding it always necessary to carry some sail - but I found comfort in this quote:

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.

- Robert Pirsig / Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

It took years after I read this book for it to dawn on me that the speed of travel is not purely related to how much effort I put in. Life seems to have a terrain of its own and it’s not always visible. There are things that slow you down, tough times when you could spend resources grinding but probably you should just accept reality and spend your resources in times when they go further.

There are plenty of stories of climbers aborting ascents even though they’ve done everything right and are in peak physical condition. The best climbers seem to become so by finding ways to keep going back to mountains rather than being able to grind through poor conditions. Sailors pull down their sails in storms so that they are not damaged - it’s difficult to repair sails and masts at sea.

When then external storms strike my suggestion is to find ways to not lose the initiative and to be prepared for when conditions improve. Just make sure you’ve not mistaken an external cause for an internal one.

Take care.