You can’t improve the efficiency of a process that doesn’t exist.

As with many things, this makes perfect sense in my mind. But I’ve been going about my projects as if I didn’t know this plain fact. This condition is quite similar to premature optimization, but I think it’s actually worse. With premature optimization, you’ve got some functionality that you’re trying to reduce into fewer lines of code or CPU cycles. Here, I’ve got nothing.

Here’s an example of this: Currently, I’m in the process of moving all of my sites to slicehost. I’m carefully deciding what kind of directory structure to use for them… and in my view, I’m very annoyed that I can’t just pick one method, and stick to it until later down the line, I have to fix it.

Instead, I keep thinking about my options, the cost-benefit analysis to what I do here. The “visionary” in me steps in to take control and ends up wreaking all kinds of havoc on productive work.

When Did This Start?

I think it’s when I became just a little bit more cognizant of the world. In high school, the world seemed quite small. That was around the time I started going into web development a bit more than just fiddling around with HTML here and there.

At that point, I didn’t know what was good or bad code: It just had to do something useful. These days, the requirements have been stepped up to much higher standards.

The Need For Historical Analysis

I think another reason for this weirdness comes from a desire to record everything. Record my failures as well as my successes, so that one day, I can or someone else can come in and figure out what really happened.

Slowly and painfully, though, I’m finding out that I actually do this fairly naturally. Not only that, I believe everyone start fabricating things about their past anyway, and so one’s reality and beliefs change as a function of time.

The solution? It’s not to write about it, which is what I thought it was. The solution is simple. You want it?

Implementation Is Always The Hardest Part

Some will call this “application”.

Really, it’s just to rise above oneself and just do.

“Be Awesome Instead” was 2008. 2009 will have to be just “Be Awesome”. I don’t have any other choice but to be awesome.

Sidenote: I haven’t had a post that varied in length throughout the writing/editing process like this one in ages. It’s time to write regularly again.