#30: First speed, then quality
Save time so that you can waste it.
Phew!
I published the damn book.
And I did it in one week.
If I hadn’t done it within a week, the sky wouldn’t have fallen.
And now I have done it; I wonder what the big deal was.
Okay, I was stressed for some days. My eyes hurt badly. I had a few panic attacks. But apart from that, it was not a big deal. I had suffered bigger panic attacks when I was late in submitting assignments at university.
The books are assignments—a rather big assignment. Minus the last-minute help if you get stuck from the tutors. And certainly, no consolation that others students are suffering with you. It is toil in isolation. That too without any rewards at the end. No credits, no distinction, not even a graduation ceremony. Only the relief of ‘been-over-and-done with.’
Now that I have published a book, I wonder why I was so intimidated by writing a book?
Christopher Reeve was right when he said, “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they become inevitable.”
It was inevitable that I will write a book one day. I have had a few tries before. Some even reached the first draft stage. But never in my wildest dreams, I thought that I would write one in one week.
Why put myself through that ordeal?
Well, because - anything worth doing is worth doing fast.
Speed is the key to sustainability. If I am to write more than one book, then the only way I will be able to write them is to write them fast. If it takes me a year to write a book, then frankly, I haven’t got many left.
It was not the book I was after but a system to write them fast. I wanted to build myself a repeatable system of writing books in the fastest possible time.
I did the same with article writing. I reduced the time to write an article from 7-8 hours to 1-2 hrs by writing an article every day. I can do it because of the system I built myself.
It is just like cooking. Over the years, I have learned the shortcuts to get them done fast. Sometimes when my kids do the cooking, I notice they take a long time to cook the same recipe. And the amount of mess they create! I was like them too. One day they will learn to cook fast too. They will make their systems too.
They will have to.
Because systems save time.
We all need to save as much time as possible so that we can waste it.
I want to waste it on reading books, watching movies, going for walks, socializing, going on holidays. Even though I want to write books, I don’t want to spend months writing them.
So my strategy is - learn to write them fast—first the speed, then the quality. Speed will lead to sustainability and quantity, which ultimately will lead to quality.
The equation is:
Speed of finishing a project = quantity of finished projects -> quality projects
Once you become fast, you become unstoppable.
Being unstoppable is the ultimate goal.
Here is the whole story.
7 Lessons Learnt By Writing And Publishing an eBook In One Week
Day 7 — Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 6 — Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 5 — Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 4 — Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 3— Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 2 — Writing An eBook In One Week
Day 1 — Writing An EBook In One Week
I Am Writing An eBook In A Week
Enjoy!
That’s it from me this week.
Take care.
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What an achievement Neera. I am so very proud of you. But then, you always achieved what you set out to do so I expected you to complete it in record time. I saw it on Amazon and bought the kindle version, only to realize I do not have a kindle on which to read it. You did amazing work with so many pages. I was able to scroll through over 50 of them. I'm traveling this weekend so when I get settled I will do some reading and share my thoughts further.