Day 36: Unrealized losses

Knowing when it's time to put your work out there

How do you know when something is ready to show to the world?

There’s always a million reasons you can come up with that keep you from pressing the “Publish” button. One more proofread of that essay. One more feature to add to that application. Just one more color grade of that video clip. The goalposts keep shifting away from where you are now.

I’ve been wrestling with it myself for the modular synth project. I’ve been working for past few days on updating the look and feel of the app, giving it a more playful aesthetic. After that’s finished, I’ve lined up a few more tasks for myself, but haven’t specified a clear endpoint.

Underneath this challenge lies a hidden fear that the project might fail. Maybe no one will end up using it. It’s much easier to live with these unrealized losses than face them in reality. It’s like how losses in a stock portfolio hit hardest when you finally sell that losing stock. Loss aversion is very real.

In the coming days, I’ll look to remedy this loop of avoidance by timeboxing myself and limiting the feature set to an MVP. I will release this project publicly.