The Expiration Date of Ideas

My brain is a perpetual motion machine, constantly churning out ideas. In theory, I could write something every day. In reality? I can’t even manage one blog post a month.

May came and went. I procrastinated until the last day, as usual. Then that day got crazy busy, and… nothing. Another month of zero output.

My Computer Is an Idea Graveyard

Open my Obsidian and you’ll find dozens of “drafts I’ll definitely write someday.” Some have pretty compelling titles:

• “Why I Deleted All My Social Media”
• “From Meta to Indie Dev: 80% Pay Cut, 100% Happier”
• “The Truth About Building Apps with AI”

These drafts are like leftovers forgotten in the fridge. Fresh and appetizing when I first stored them. Now? They just feel… stale. Past their prime.

My problem is simple: Perfectionism + Fear of Failure = Doing Nothing.

Derek Sivers (my hero) once wrote something that cuts deep: “Ideas are just a multiplier of execution, and they’re worth nothing unless they are executed.” Ideas without execution are worthless.

It’s Not Just Blog Posts

Reading? I’m great at highlighting. My Kindle is full of yellow marks. But after finishing a book? No notes, no reflection. Ask me months later what it was about and I’ll awkwardly mumble, “Uh… it was about… hang on, let me Google it!”

App ideas? My Obsidian has an “App Ideas” page with at least 20 “brilliant” concepts. Half have already been built by someone else. The other half will probably never see daylight. I’ve got several apps that I coded for weeks then abandoned because they weren’t “perfect enough.”

The most ironic part? I often fantasize: If only I had a company with engineers to build my ideas while I just give directions.

Wait… isn’t that exactly what I have now?

AI Killed My Last Excuse

With ChatGPT, Claude Code, and Cursor, I literally can “just give directions” and watch ideas come to life. These AI assistants are more patient, more knowledgeable, and never complain about overtime compared to any employee.

Yet I’m still procrastinating. Why?

Because I’m still chasing “perfect.” I want every post to be a masterpiece, every app to change the world. The result? Nothing gets done.

The Fresh Produce Revelation

The other day in the shower, it hit me: Content is like fresh produce. It has an expiration date.

When an idea first appears, it’s alive, warm, full of energy. But leave it too long and it loses that spark. It becomes an obligation. A burden.

Take this post. If I saved it as a draft to “perfect later,” it would join the graveyard with all the others, never to be published.

The only app I actually shipped wasn’t perfect at launch either. But at least I chose to ship it, then kept iterating, accepting feedback, making it better.

So I decided: Good or bad, just publish it.

Note to Future Me

Future me will thank present me. Not because this post is amazing (honestly, it’s pretty average), but because I finally DID something instead of just thinking about it.

If you’re reading this, it means my reflection worked. I beat perfectionism, at least this once.

Next time I’m tempted to let something sit until it’s “perfect,” I hope I remember today’s insight:

Ship while it’s fresh. Imperfect action beats perfect planning.

After all, a rotten tomato is better than no tomato. At least rotten tomatoes can become fertilizer for the next idea.

P.S. This post took 30 minutes from idea to publish. Not perfect, but it exists. That’s enough.