My favorite childhood author, Robert Louis Stevenson, reportedly burnt the first draft of his bestseller ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.’ Here is why.
When he showed the first draft to his wife, instead of showering praise, she was quite critical of it. It annoyed him so much that he decided to rewrite it from scratch.
But he was afraid that he might be tempted to improvise the existing draft. It would have been easier to do, but the resulting novel would have been a mediocre one.
So he burnt the first draft.
Now, this story is disputed and there are multiple versions of it, but the underlying wisdom is solid.
We slack off when we have the option to do so.
In college, have you slacked off the rest of the semester only to slog the night before the exam? Why? Because you could.
For the same reason, when a deadline is six months away, we laze around till the deadline is 3 days away. Why? Because we can.
Optionality is the enemy of getting things done.
When you want to get something done, kill alternative options — close all escape routes.
When there is only one option left, short of impossibility, nothing will stop you from doing it.
– Rajan