NaNoWriMo’s Lessons in Project Success

It is looking like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will end not so much a failure as a success in unanticipated areas. NaNoWriMo is a contest; write a 50,000 word novel in on month. November to be exact. There’s a very active group of people who pursue this challenge, a considerably smaller number succeed. Success is referred to as “Winning”, so anything else is “Losing”, right? Not so fast.

Like many endeavors, failing at the primary goal can still leave the landscape littered with successes in other areas along the way. Take my experience as an example. At least three successes were spun-off from the NaNoWriMo project aside from the primary goal.

The first spin-off success came from one of the most common pieces of advice I read in preparing for NaNoWriMo. The advice boiled down to the idea that when faced with multiple tasks, people succeed at their number one priority. Of course, the NaNoWriMo wrote that ideas as “Make NaNoWriMo your number one priority”. In my case, and prior to NaNoWriMo starting- perhaps even prior to reading that advice (its all a bit fuzzy when viewed from here at day 23 of November), I had committed to a volunteer project. The project was writing some software that turned out to eat every waking moment between the first and 15th of November, as well as more than a few moments that were designated for sleeping. I say that not as an excuse, although it is a pretty good one, but to illustrate the point that I succeeded at the project I had placed as my true number one priority; getting that software done.

The second spin-off success has been the constant admonition by the creator of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, to embrace imperfection. Chris’s advice both in his book and in pep talk e-mails sent to the 116,000+ participants of NaNoWriMo on the topic of perfection and the lack thereof is to just go for it and keep moving forward. Endlessly rewriting and perfecting is not conducive to the true goal of a 50K draft. This bit of advice could easily be applied to many projects that start out with good intentions and get bogged down in beautification plans. Put another way, rough but done is much better that perfect incompletion.

The third spin-off success could be summed up as “Plan your work, work your plan, and re-baseline when you have to”. On day one of NaNoWriMo, the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, or about 1,667 words per day. What happens when you get behind? Constantly beating yourself up over yesterday’s low production does not improve it. Base lining the project over again at your new place and target can provide a refreshing motivation to get things moving. Creating a base line that is realistic helps to. The goal here is to succeed, and lying to yourself rarely results in a resounding victory at project completion.

Transition Time

It is transition time!  From summer to fall weather, holiday decorations in the stores, and the executive branch of the federal government from republican to democratic control.

The summer to fall transition is reflected in our time change.  Maybe we should make that the “official” end of summer.  Once you start messing with daylight you may as well attach a season to it.

Yes, I was serious about the holiday decorations transition too.  The coffee shop I went into today was decked out for the holidays.  Granted, they were using a brownish color theme—maybe they’ll swap it out for traditional red/green later in the season—but still, isn’t this a bit early?  Only those in retail truly know.

Finally, about the government transition thing, well nobody is questioning that.  I debated picking up a newspaper for a keepsake but then thought, “Nah, that’s stilly of me.  People don’t do that anymore.”  I got home and heard the New York Times went back to the presses, producing an extra 75,000 copies in the wake of huge demand.  Guess I was wrong, maybe this is a sign the printed news press isn’t dead.  I’m OK with that.  I still like something about browsing a newspaper, the way news stories are laid out in a way that Internet surfing can’t replicate.  There is also the tactile sense of a folded newspaper in your hand and trying to hold the pages so they don’t fall apart or flop over just where you wanted to read something.  Reading a newspaper really is an acquired skill.  Nevertheless, I digress.  This was about transitions, not the fate of the printed press.

If you were to think of the federal government like a corporation, the CEO was just fired and the board of directors has been shaken up.  What’s a line worker supposed to think?  Probably not much since it is a big organization.  As long as the whole place isn’t going to fold over night there really isn’t much that will change quickly.  Big organizations (corporate or government) turn slowly.  Even with the PR about new management and change, the new organization has to operate with the same external constraints.  The money situation hasn’t changed and the works in progress are still there, and while the long range goals may be altered today’s work still has to be done.  Probably the biggest influence short term will be the addition of some entertaining (if your amused by such things) speculation about who will get what job in the new administration.  Just like a corporate takeover, the influential people will jockey for position and there will be a long list of rumors about who is going where and doing what.

So the transitions are on.  I’d suggest you find the good in them all and focus on that if you must.  One thing is certain about transitions; there will always be another one coming.  Seasons of the year, store decorations, and people who want to be boss.