Episode 01 · Making things · 42 min
Begin before you’re ready
Why the first draft is allowed to be bad, and the five-minute step that gets a stalled project unstuck.
In this episode.
- 04:10Why the first version is allowed to be bad — and why it usually is.
- 13:45The blank-page problem, and the five-minute trick that beats it.
- 24:20Small decisions that unstick big projects: a story about a zine.
- 34:05What “ready” actually feels like from the inside.
Three things worth keeping.
- 1
Momentum beats preparation. A bad draft teaches you more than another week of planning.
- 2
Shrink the start until it feels silly. Five minutes counts; it almost always becomes fifty.
- 3
Readiness is a story you tell afterwards, not a feeling you wait for beforehand.
Show notes.
This week’s conversation starts with a confession: every project on this show began as an embarrassing first draft. We talk through the notebooks, voice memos and half-built prototypes behind finished work — and why their makers are glad nobody saw version one.
Along the way we land on a practical rule. If a task feels enormous, you haven’t found the real first step yet. Make the step smaller until starting feels almost pointless. Then start.
“You don’t need to feel ready. You need to feel barely willing — and a timer.”
One last question.
Pick the one that has been nagging you, then start with the newest episode.
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