So, I’ve been struggling to stay motivated (and consequently have been writing extremely poorly) as I approach the end of my master’s program. This then translates into procrastination, as I literally see word counts shrinking from week to week as I edit, and it’s just frustrating. To the point where it’s become difficult to sit down and make myself work on anything.

I had an interesting interaction today–I was procrastinating by watching a Twitch stream of an ex-academic and current designer whose work I admire, and I mentioned in chat that I was grateful for the stream as an avenue to procrastinate from my graduate work. Part of his reply caught me off guard—it was functionally that his Master’s thesis was bad, that you can write -ok- to advance in academia, but writing to be -read- was a skill that required a lot of work, and that it gets way easier when you don’t have to write to impress a bunch of smart people.

It was strangely encouraging and humanizing to see someone whose work I respect talk about how they have at times done poor work, and it gave me a little nudge to keep going. I’ve often held myself to exacting standards and I let perfect be the enemy of good.

My point is this: don’t be afraid to talk about your failures publicly. You never know who is going to be helped by your openness or what they might learn from your generosity. Expect more exploration on this topic (and my bungling of things) in the future.