“Work in Progress” By Poornima Vijayashanker
I took the picture above while I was touring the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona last month. The famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi took over the project in 1883, and transformed it into his own architectural and engineering style.
Gaudi continued to work on the church until his death, but to this day the church is incomplete. Many factors have contributed to the delay of its completion such as the Spanish Civil War in the 1950s and finding sources of funding.
Despite the delay, the church is an architectural and engineering marvel. Every piece of it has an intricate detail, and every detail fits into a bigger puzzle.
It got me thinking about how many of us worry about meeting deadlines, shipping products, and completing projects. We think that it marks the end. We’re looking for an ending, because we’re tired of working on the same thing day after day. We are eager to just move on to something else, only to chase yet another ending.
But what would happen if we didn’t move on?
If instead the first thing we released, launched, or shipped marked a beginning.
And sharing it with the world, gave people an opportunity to experience it, and provide us with feedback.
Then we took their feedback and used it as an opportunity to learn.
Of course there might come a point in time when our creative juices start to dry up. When that happens we could take a step back, and look at the thing we’re working on from a new angle.
Or we could take a real break, and learn a new skill that could be applied to refining our thing.
Or if we’re really get stuck, we could recruit other people to work on our thing with us.
Or we could incorporate learnings from building and refining our thing into a new thing.
There are an endless number of approaches to keeping our thing alive, beyond our lifetimes just like Gaudi has done with the Sagrada Familia church.
A work in progress can be a wonderful thing on its own.
What’s your work in progress, and how do you stay inspired?
Let me know in the comments below!
Isn’t Sagrada Familia church beautiful and inspiring? Thanks for the insightful reminder, Poornima. Your posts are very helpful. Look forward to reading your new book!
My work in progress is….”investing in myself” & I continue to do that in bits and pieces every day. I read books,listen to podcasts and apply all my learning to help friends ,colleagues, family.This way I learn too.And your writings are an integral part of it.They Pull me up,when I am at times blocked/stopped. Thanks a ton & GOD bless you.
Hi Poornima, it’s true that a work in progress can be a good thing. Sometimes it makes more sense to launch a 1.0 version and step back for a while, than it is to keep on polishing and perfecting the thing forever. When you step back, you give others a chance to comment on your thing and yourself a chance to learn from the feedback and develop the thing meaningfully into 2.0 version. An example of my work in progress could be my personal website. I honed it for quite some time until a wise friend told me pretty much the same thing you did.
I’d say that small goals keep the inspiration going. When you get achieve a small goal, you experience a sense of achievement that’s important for motivation in the product development process and which you should celebrate. Then off to the next goal!:) I wouldn’t call it a constant chase, but making progress, taking steps forward, learning, getting better at what you do, making your product better.
What keeps you inspired Poornima with Femgineer, which keeps on growing and developing?:)
Appreciate you reaching out Rose! When did you visit the Sagrada Familia church?
Great to hear you invest in yourself Suchi! What are some of your favorite podcasts from this year?
Thanks for your comment Tiina! I like what you said about launching a version 1.0. That is great example of achieving a small goal and giving yourself the motivation to build 2.0 😉
In terms of Femgineer, I love how it continues to make an impact on people like yourself, and that is a big source of inspiration that keeps me building. It started off as a small blog and has grown into an education company over the years. I’m curious to see where it will take me next.
Great to hear that Poornima! What you do and how you do it is really inspiring. Keep up the great work!:)