Hey friend!
It's Chris again. I'm writing this really late on Saturday night, because I told myself I would get this email out today! Two weeks ago, I emailed you about trying to be more consistent and provide value without overthinking these emails. I'm still working on the format of these, but I know I want to at least try to share something useful with you on a regular basis.
Here's what I've been learning...
"Perfection is the enemy of progress."
I don't know about you, but I have battled perfectionism my whole life. Until only a few years ago, I thought perfectionism was a good thing. Now, I'm becoming more and more convinced that most often, perfectionism is a clever excuse to never finish things and to avoid criticism. I've been on a journey to overcome these excuses.
I just wrote out my thoughts in a new essay on my blog about this very topic: perfection as an obstacle to creativity and progress. This one is really personal to me and honestly just writing it was a good exercise in practicing what I preach. Here's a snippet:
I cannot over-emphasize how many unfinished projects I have had in my life. I always thought my mindset was “I’d rather not do it if I can’t do it perfectly”.
I’m only now realizing it was “if I never call it finished, they can’t judge me for it. it’s still a work-in-progress”
And boom. A life-time of unfinished projects.
After Effects Preset and Spark AR
After Effects Typewriter Text animation preset
If you missed it, I release a free preset to animate a customizable typewriter effect in just a couple clicks. You can customize the timing with keyframes and change the blinking cursor at the end. Super time-saving if you ever have to do this type of animation.
cz_Typewriter - Text Animation Preset for After Effects
Spark AR - Face Filters
Ok. So I admittedly have been pretty uninterested in learning Spark AR (Facebook's AR platform for creating Instagram filters) because I personally don't have a lot of interest making face filters. But... when I was recently exposed to the world of scripting in Spark, I thought it would be a good challenge. I haven't made a lot of progress in this, because I got really busy, but I did manage to make a super unfinished filter that gives you a cartoon mouth and follows your mouth shape!
Check out the thread on Twitter where I walked through my process while building this far.
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Things I'm really into right now...
IndieHackers Podcast - I've been slowly working through the huge backlog of interviews with bootstrapped SaaS business founders. Even if you aren't interested in the developer demographic that this focuses on, there's a ton to learn from people who are finding success in other industries. Highly recommend!
This Interview with Justin Cone about the evolution of the motion design industry over the past 10 years. His observation on motion design as a career resonates deeply with me and a lot of others in the industry: "...the biggest downside to being a motion designer is the intense frustration one feels in never having truly mastered their craft. When you approach proficiency in one area, you realize that you have drifted away from excellence in others."
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As always, I would absolutely love to hear from you if you have any feedback, thoughts, or questions!
Your friend,
~Chris
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