Impatience wants the answer. Patience wants the right answer. Only one of those gets graded.
STILLNESS
WHAT THIS MEANS
Finishing and finishing well feel almost identical while you are in it, and only one of them survives contact with a grader. Speed produces something that closes the tab in your head, which is a real relief and not the same as being correct. The urge to be done is a feeling about you, not a judgment about the work.
Build one checking step into anything you turn in this week. Finish, step away for ten minutes, then reread it as if somebody else wrote it. The second pass is where most of the marks actually live.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Where do you settle for fast over actually correct?
MORE IN PATIENCE & TIMING
- Getting really good at something takes about three times longer than the internet says. Plan around the real number.
- Do the edges of the puzzle first. Some problems only make sense once the borders are in place.
- Be as patient with yourself learning something new as you’d be with a ten-year-old learning it.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.