FBR – “Fast, Bad, Rong”

I was listening to an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show featuring Safi Bahcall when I heard something that really stuck out to me as I began this endeavor to build a writing (and posting) habit. Safi likes acronyms to remember things or help them stick, and the one he mentioned that stuck was “FBR.”

(F)ast
(B)ad
(R)ong

He basically acknowledged that after he had done what could arguably be a sufficient amount of research and done enough planning, he just needed to get going on the actual writing process, which was often the most difficult step. He’s not rong wrong.

It’s always easier to Google more information, to look up/buy/check out more books that could arguably be considered research or prep work for the final product. But the point comes when the rubber needs to meet the road.

As the author James Clear puts it in his book Atomic Habits:

I refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result.

At the end, you need to just start…….writing. So that’s what I took to heart from Safi’s interview, and for better or worse, despite the fact that I’ve got eight draft posts kicking around in the pipeline, I’m gritting my teeth, stopping the endless research and resulting rabbit holes and trying to write (and complete) a post. No matter how right or wrong they feel when I post them.