Keep Hammering Away

While developing and starting my blog, I have experienced scores of challenges. The creative part (writing) has been genuinely gratifying, liberating. But the technical details are wearing me down... feeds, widgets, carnivals, links, domains, web hosts, channels, RSS, URLs, XML, HTML, KILL, HADMYFILL, bla, bla, bla bla, blaaaaaaaaaaa...

I am a complete tech idiot.... so from the ground up I’ve had to research and learn everything as I go... often having to back step twice to get to the most basic definition which will hopefully lead to my brain finally understanding. It has been so overwhelming!!! Couple that with my personality and well, honestly, I nearly gave up, more than once. Surprised?

To relieve my stress, I began venting to a friend about how frustrating the mechanics are, wondering out loud if this was really for me.... In an effort to help me keep my head above water, she shared a ‘project management theory’ (sounds really brainy doesn’t it) she learned when she had once been a part to the corporate world.



Each person has a different way of dealing with a project (or problem or goal.) Some individuals, who shall remain unnamed, go full throttle... finishing 90%, but then they just can’t seem to finish the last little bit. I, on the other hand, start exuberantly, but once the road gets bumpy, I give up and head for something new.

In most projects enthusiasm is high at first. During this phase we are passionate, but we have little knowledge or skills. As we head in to the next phase, excitement often reaches a low and in order to get through, we must increase our knowledge.  If we are lucky enough to make it to the end of the project, interest returns and our skills have grown drastically.  Sounds good so far.

In order for me to get past my ‘bumps’, she told me to pick one small thing I could learn that day. Once I accomplished that, I could consider my day a success.... which would help me keep pushing through... to learn one more thing the next day. One little thing at a time.

It worked! It sounds so simple, but my brain just doesn't work that way...  the big picture always seems to obscure the pieces.  And I know that I just scratched the surface, but so far I've learned gobs of techy stuff and I imagine I can soak up a little bit more, before my brain explodes. So I am going to keep hammering away, one mutilated, bent-over nail at a time.