emmie

Vincent Van Gogh on the accumulation of small things:

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. The trick is to focus on the first small thing. Starting small is still starting, and small beginnings often lead to extraordinary endings.”

Don’t be afraid to publish along the way. You don’t have to wait until you’re done to drop a perfect, finished artifact from the sky (in fact, you may use that as an excuse to never publish). People like stories, so use that to your benefit. Share the wins, the losses, and the thought processes. Bring us along! If you haven’t been in the habit of... See more

I’ve made a thing and I think it’s cool!” Bringing people along is a good thing for everyone. By publishing your work you’re helping people learn. You’re inspiring others to create.

This is a great opportunity to take what you’re already doing and repurpose it for the benefit of others. You can turn those learnings into blog posts, conference talks, meetups, podcasts, or open source projects.

Your curiosity will naturally pull you in certain directions, so don’t be afraid to go super deep into a topic that you’re interested in. When a person is truly interested in the thing they’re writing or talking about, their excitement is contagious. Whatever you’re excited about, be excited about it publicly. Whatever you’re curious about, be... See more

If you’re in the second group, you just need to start. Start anywhere, start on anything, start something. You’ll never come up with the perfect idea for an OSS library, a business, a podcast, or an article by just thinking about it. Start on something, today. It won’t be the perfect version of the thing you have in your head, but you’ll be in... See more

If that doesn’t ring true for you, you may fall into one of two groups:

1. You actually are doing things, you’ve just trained yourself to think that anything you do isn’t worth sharing.


2. You want to be doing things, but you can’t bring yourself to get started.