Something I have kept in front of me for the past six months or so has been this mindset:

Ship it when it’s useful, not when it’s done.

(I think it was Jason Fried who said it, but if not it sounds like something he would say.)

This metric of shipping when a thing is useful was what I kept before me when working on our Learn Ulysses course, the Plan Your Year workbook, and All the Things.

Shipping a product when it’s useful is a far more tangible metric for creating things and putting them out there.

Because — and let’s be honest — in the mind of the creator, a project is never done. There is always one more detail or element or idea that needs to be fine tuned or figured out.

So, instead of waiting until you’re done, step back and look at what you’re working on and ask yourself, Is this useful to others right now?

If the answer is yes, then ship it. If the answer is no, fix it.