what’s done is done

Our video shoot is done. Multiple weeks of prep getting everything dialed in—backyard, lawn, beds, baths, every single detail perfect. Our house has been 90% done for a long time, but that last 10% is where it goes from good to great, and that is the secret sauce.

It reminded me of something from years ago.

My wife and I both bought little starter homes early on in our relationship, and we needed to sell hers to buy our marital abode. So we renovated it. Built a huge deck off the back, made the kitchen really nice, finished out the attic into a bedroom, did everything to make it as perfect as we could.

And then we realized we should have done that a long time ago. It turned the house from functionally okay to actually a really nice place to live.

So this video shoot was wonderful because we still have time in this house. It forced us to get it perfect.

Finally got a true hifi stereo dialed in, it's so nice. I need music in my life.

We're hosting my parents this weekend and my brother next weekend, and I've been thinking a lot about forcing functions. My wife is sick, so I've been doing everything—meals, cleaning, kids -on top of my usual work.

There's something about being a host that takes over your whole life. It consumes you. But it has bounded constraints, and you share it with others, and there's something very satisfying about that.

Being busy is fine when you know what you have to do. Versus wandering around in your head trying to find an answer, which is what I do a lot of the time. The self-employed creative life. I think that's why I like deadlines and constraints so much.

When you host, you know what you have to do—clean the room, make the bed, bake a dessert, figure out dinner. It's not easy, but it's achievable. You have clearly bounded constraints.

It forces you to finish things. That's what my wife and I were talking about with the video tour. A huge pain, but totally worth it because your house ends up perfect.

There's no time for half measures. You do what needs to be done.

That's what I like so much about fitness. It's bounded. You're dealing with physics. You compete with yourself under a pretty limited scope. You're not going to run 10 miles further than you did yesterday. You're not going to lift four times as much weight as you lifted yesterday. You're not going to get the splits in a day.

You just do what you can do within the limits of the time you have and the constraints of your body. As you iterate, you improve. You can make remarkable progress in a couple of months on this kind of program, which is why it's addictive.

I think that's probably true with just about anything. Two or three focused months can make a radical difference. But there's a lot you can do in a week, too.

Most of my work doesn't have that kind of structure. It's open-ended. Which is what makes it interesting, but also what makes it hard to finish.

So here's to more partners, deadlines, forcing functions, and hosting.

More things where there's no option but to get it done.