The Importance of Iteration

Do the thing. Do it again. Do it eight more times. Ten mediocre creations beat one unfinished masterpiece.

There is great power in consistent iteration of work. It’s the key to solving “writer’s block”, or any generalized fear of failure, or desire to achieve perfection. You could write a word a day and end up with a sentence by the end of the week. It might not be the best sentence you’ve ever written, but it sure beats a blank page.

For the better part of a year now I’ve been writing every day in a prompt book I bought at the store. The prompts range from the most profound, “Do you think world peace is an illusion?”, to somewhat frivolous, “How do you feel on rainy days?” Each day I respond to these prompts as an exercise in iteration.

Not every response is gold. In fact, none of them are. But they all hold value in their existence. I’ve been writing in this book nearly every day for nigh on 10 months and I have pages and pages of words to show for it. There is pride in knowing that at least some of them hold merit that I can draw from, and comfort in knowing that I have pages of evidence that I have been writing something.

Think of creativity as something that needs to flow. It flows along with all of our other thoughts and ideas. Let’s say everything flows through a spigot that you control. A blank page can strike fear in many a competent artist, and scare them into keeping that spigot sealed tight. Why sully the first page of a sketch book with anything but the absolute best? Why start typing if you’re unsure of your words?

The spigot stays sealed, and the creativity does not flow. But if you open the spigot, all ideas, good and bad, are able to flow freely. It behooves you to catch everything as it flows out of you; record as much as you possibly can. Upon review, it’s plain to see which ideas work and which don’t. But there is no way to make that decision if the ideas don’t flow in the first place.

Time is the greatest ally to iteration. It’s a daunting task to imagine writing a hundred prompts in one sitting. A prompt a day, though it may take a hundred days, makes it easier to digest. The piecemeal approach helps develop consistency through discipline, and fosters growth while diminishing fear of failure. It doesn’t matter whether or not the prompt is good today, because you have another tomorrow, and dozens to look back on. Keep going.

Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon, described his approach to iteration when it comes to creating music. He posits that the world is made of funnels, where reward is directly correlated by the amount of input at the top of the funnel. He goes on to say that out of the supposed 15,000 songs that Irving Berlin wrote, 1,500 were published, 25 reached #1, he received 12 Academy Nominations, and only ever won 4. Fifteen-thousand songs, and only 4 awards. Of course, he would have been less likely to win those awards had he not written as many songs as he did.

Mr. Conte speaks to his creative process in which he used to strive to “finish” a song. But art rarely has a clear finishing point. He instead proposes that we should “work to publish”, and instead adopt a selfless approach focused on releasing content and moving on to the next project. Jack Conte understands the value of iteration.

And now, hopefully, so do you. I encourage you to let your thoughts flow freely and take the next step to completing your current project. It could be small, it could be what you might need to be able to move on to the next one. And the next one. And the next…