One of the challenges of writing a technical blog is that it’s easy, oh so easy, to make errors. Like fundamental glaring errors (such as my post on Drobo) or even more fundamental errors in judgement or knowledge.
Sometimes my fear of these mistakes prevents me from posting material that I have laboured for hours to draw and write, or I spend a lot of time researching a topic until I am confident that what I have is correct. On reflection, both of these are bad outcomes but the fear of getting something wrong is much stronger.
Design is never done
I have heard that some writers struggle to to finish a story and want to keep rewriting, tweaking, and refining. I have similar problems with Designs. I often think that I need a bit more detail here, some more information there, this topic needs more research before I will have a high level of confidence and so on.
At some point the deadline approaches and I must release the document for review and signoff.
Peer Review
I often spend days preparing a Design. Gathering, writing, diagrams, research and interviews. And once it all comes together, and the deadline has come, I publish the Draft Version and send it to peers for review.
Which I hate.
Because my peers are going to find something wrong with it. There is always something wrong with a design. There are so many details to capture and document, that you always miss something.
And sometimes I’m just wrong
And sometimes I just get something plain wrong. However it happens, bad information, poor research, not enough questions… whatever, it doesn’t matter. I
Grace
One of biggest personality flaws is that I don’t like being wrong or criticised. I’m told that no one likes it, but that doesn’t make it feel any better. And I need to work on my gracious acceptance of my mistakes and suppress that urge to point out that’s it wasn’t me, or it’s not my fault, or it couldn’t be helped.
I going to make it a point to always take responsibility for these mistakes. Even if it’s someone else’s fault, or fault in the organisation, it’s still my fault. I make it my fault to fix, and my fault to accept that i have to fix the problem.
And you always look good saying it’s your fault because no one ever does.
Acceptance
But it’s never easy for me to accept my mistakes. This year, I’m going to work harder on my mistakes. I’m going to strive to make less mistakes.
But most of all, I going to be working on being gracious when I make mistakes and be nice.
