A few people took my post on defeating procrastination to be advising producing poor quality under the guise of “just getting something out there”. I would like to correct this if I wasn’t clear in my post. My opinion is if something is worth doing it is not just worth doing well, it is worth making extraordinary.
The point I was making in the original post was to get through your to-do list, perhaps starting with the easy stuff, to get on a roll. When you make some small progress you can build momentum. I do also mention your standards
It’s not actually about setting your sights low, or dropping your personal standards. What you have to do is identify those things you have to get right from the get-go, those items that do need analysis, and what can be fixed later.
The goal must be to make what you create the very best you can. That means putting in all the effort and creativity you can muster. At the same time we need to be pragmatic and know that we don’t have an eternity to dedicate to every little thing.
Not everything needs to leave your desk absolutely perfect. You can incrementally improve your blog over time. Posts can be re-visited. In Japan they call this continual improvement “Kaizen“.
As you make progress you will get into a habit of being productive and procrastination will not be such a worry. At that point you will have the perspective to know when further analysis will be beneficial and not just more delay.
I’m not quite there myself, I still have to stop myself making that one last tweak (followed by another). But I know I am improving, and sometimes that is the best we can expect of ourselves.