Progress is about putting great ideas into action.
However, trying to make a bad idea work is a source of little more than frustration.
Don’t try to save bad work
When I speak with a writer, designer, programmer, etc., who is struggling with a project, one of the most common things they will ask me is, ‘how can I save this?’ They have usually worked hard on something for a long time, then figured out that the original idea was a bad one, but they’ve put so much into it that they refuse to scrap it.
So, they invest more and more time trying to save a bad idea, until they either give up, or worse, hand their client a poor quality piece of work.
Persistence and delusion
Persistence is essential if we want to succeed in anything of value. However, there’s a difference between persistence and delusion. To persist with a bad idea when we know it’s going nowhere, is pointless.
Be kind to yourself. Refuse to waste your time working with bad ideas. Once you discover something is a bad idea, give yourself permission to acknowledge you are wasting your time, then reinvest your time, doing something that’s worthy of you and your talent.