Just Showing Up versus Being Prepared

I’ve just ordered another book from Amazon! (Oh January Spendthrifts...)

It’s Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up. This book has been simmering for 20 years so not a rush job, and backed by years of reflection and experience. Its author: Patricia Ryan Madson, a respected, innovative teacher, who recently retired from full-time teaching at Stanford University. Her speciality:drama and in particular, improvisation.

[Today I put a “My Bookshelf” list in the side bar of this blog and will gradually add books which have helped me as a coach. If you click on the link, you’ll get the details.]

I’d come across an extract from the book, covering the first of (I gather) thirteen maxims: Say Yes. What I responded to immediately, here, and to a related comment was the importance of getting started. I have clients who can’t get started and I often share with them advice I got from a friend in my first year at university on how to overcome “essay block”. Just start writing.

Anyone facing this problem from freshman to doctoral student will find lots of support in Ben Dean’s free emailnewsletter: the All But Dissertation Survival Guide. Back issues are archived - this bloke is generous and smart.

I also found online the transcript of an interview Madson had had with Tom Peters.

Something in it was pointing a finger right at me! Perfect is the enemy of good.

Expanding on this, she commented: "If you relax, you'll do it right. If you've done the background work, you know the stuff." When it comes to writing my newsletter, I do what I‘ve done all morning. I find sidetracks: lots of peripheral tasks to work on instead—all of them related to my newsletter and perfectly justifiable, but at the end of my morning, there’s no newsletter.

When I do get down to writing, I’m never satisfied. I edit and re-edit.

So I now have my first challenge to myself for 2007: Bin that perfectionism.

Perfect is the enemy of good.