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How to do good work
Friday, 25 August 2006
When I was at school and university, I was very interested in becoming a writer. Because of that, I did as many professional writing courses as I could in order to polish up my skills. Usually, in such courses, they get you to produce short stories and newspaper articles.
I soon noticed a mistake that many amateur writers make (including myself at the time). They tend to try too hard to impress their audience by second-guessing what the audience wants. They aim to sound big and important and so they try to write like Shakespeare or Charles Dickens - spewing out fancy sentences, over long descriptions, and deep serious subjects.
At the same time, most students enjoyed reading the complete opposite of the type of thing they were writing. They'd consume pop-music magazines, comic books or airport novels. But because they thought serious writers didn't produce that sort of thing, they'd avoid writing what they liked to read.
The problem is, if you're not producing something you'd like to read, you're generally just raving on with something you don't know anything about. If you don't enjoy reading serious, descriptive material, then you're unlikely to be able to write it well.
In writing , the best way to produce something good is to write as if you yourself were the audience. Knock-out something you'd like to read, and chances are a lot of other people will feel the same way.
Your best work will always come if you're producing something you'd love to use.
This lesson works in all sorts of fields. But, most people produce things the way they think it "should" be done rather than how they'd like someone to do it for them.
I see this mistake all the time in the tech world. People build really complicated systems and write all the documentation in boring corporate speak, believing it makes their work seem more serious and important. They produce things they'd hate to use, and write documents they'd hate to read, because they think that's the way it is supposed to be done.
They're exactly like the student who likes reading Stephen King novels, but tries to write like Shakespeare. They do bad work by trying too hard to do impressive work.
Instead, they should be imagining themselves as the only user of the system - and not being judged or supervised by anyone else. How would you like it to be designed and documented if that was the case? Probably very differently from what you believe to be the "official" or "serious" way.
This also works for the projects you choose. If you work on things you like and are interested in, you're likely to do a much better job than if you work on something that's alien to you.
For example, if I decided to open a cosmetics shop, I'd almost certainly fail. I know virtually nothing about that subject and, for obvious reasons, have never bought cosmetics in my life. I have no idea what customers like or would be interested in. Almost any woman could trounce me in such an enterprise.
If, on the other hand, I opened a bookstore, I'd likely do quite well. I spend a lot of time in bookstores as a customer and have a good idea of what I would want. Chances are other bookstore customers have similar views to me.
The principle is that you know yourself better than pretty much anything else in the universe. Good work comes from knowledge, and you'll be working with what you know best. Look inside yourself for what products you'd enjoy using, then try to make those things.
This, incidentally is also a great way to find new business ideas. If you search for a business, product or service that you want and are unable to find it, that presents a marvelous opportunity. If you're looking for it, there's a very good chance that a number of other people are too.
Make stuff for yourself, and you'll soon find people begging you to produce things for them as well.
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