[2024-06-10] Inspiration
"Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working."
— Pablo Picasso
When I start a new project—something I've never done before—I tend to think about it for a while. I try to figure out how to tackle the project by imagining how it will work.
But contemplation gets me only so far. As Gordon B. Hinckley said, "You cannot plow a field by turning it over in your mind. To begin, begin."
So, I get started. And that's where the greatest insights come.
When I started learning Brazilian Portuguese, I made vocabulary lists, compiled verb tables and jotted down troublesome phrases. I hated making mistakes. With time, however, I realized that I learned more from mistakes than from correct responses. So I abandoned the lists, the tables and the notes, and just kept moving through the program.
When I decided to organize my electronic photos, I hoped that thinking about how to organize them before I started would save time once I started. But it proved difficult to come up with a perfect organizing structure and naming convention in the abstract. Inevitably, I had to jump in, using an assumption about the best approach, and adjust as I went along.
The same is proving true with my Family History book. I try an approach, see the limitations of said approach, and try something else. That does mean that I need to go back and adjust my initial work to match the new approach, but there doesn't seem to be another way.
Inspiration comes, but only when I'm working.
