Start first, fix later

There are tons of books, webpages, comments about procrastination, creative block, imposter syndrome so it scares even before you can face it in your life. But anyways life difficulties and lack of an experience can play it's role in raising a self-doubt, insecurity for any professional. For those who was growing in a feeling that people are always right and can always Judge you, if you'll do something stupid or even different than it's expected by them, this post is written.

You can start everytime, just when you feel comfortable to share your inner world with your notepad.

Confidence

The transformation takes time and requires a constant will and a faith in one's own strength. If you don't have a belief and faith in yourself, there will be hard to do something with a fake confidence. Is it means it's needed to be just a confident human by the nature to be successful? Most of the times - yes. But is this confidence only for chosen ones? Even those who are confident - have real, proven reasons to behave like that. Preparing, planing, setting clear goals are vital skills for individiuals who want to be always on top of social hierarchy. Before others start thinking over the problem, they're solving it. Because preparation (or experience certainly) matters in such critical momments. But who likes to spend time for a preparation, right? Nobody. And that's right also, because constant preparation without doing the actual work is also a bad thing. What is called procrastination.

Description of a problem starts in first stages of the work. From the word "Description" comes simple explanation "de" "script" - google helps and reminds such words as "manuscript, handwriting, copy". So among them is found the word "handwriting" which can be an small hint to the solution of the problem. At least it will be something, what goes Before the work and problem solving. And it's a relatively easy step to start doing something when it's needed already to solve the problem, but you don't know How.

Decisive moment

Before any action takes place you're spending precious time just by Thinking about the problem, preparing and as a result doing less than you could Do+Think at the same time. Certainly it's needed to think twice (or more) before you tell something. But if you write down your thoughts, firstly probably nobody will read them (if you was affraid of that). But for you it will be already a small Materialized piece of your idea and later in the future a Product of your thinking process. The product combined from the smallest pieces and implemented into the bigger object. Something like a transition from 0 to 1. [1]

Firstly, it will be a sincere confession to yourself of how bad your writing is. But also it will be a starting point and a moment from which you will be only growing, moving forward and doing things. It will be something useful.

Creative Freedom

What is good about writing is that you release ideas and freeing the space in your mind for further processes like generation of ideas, analyzing them and focusing entirely on some particular subject. It's really hard to think within a 'limited space', just as a comparison I can choose a car repairing workshop. It's always easier when you have everything sorted, understand where is each instrument can be found and have a free space around the car for your movement. Even if you can't repair the car you'll have a willingness to be in the workshop for a longer time, and possibly solving this problem later. Solving the problem produces a happiness. And a failure is not so devastating, in comparison to the failure within the workshop full of garbage.

Is it related to a motion design? A lot... From archiving projects to achiving higher levels, learning new skills and interacting with other professionals. When you name almost every object, layer, set markers, leaving well organized notes, a good folder structure - you summarize what was done and what will be done, thinking and memorizing each milestone. And when it will be needed to return to the project it will be much easier to start the process again, without spending too much time and mind energy. And if you have saved enough energy without wasting it on insignificant actions, you'll be able to do much more things during last hours of the work day. Moreover when you're spending a couple of seconds to name the object or organize the project - you have a small break for your head, because you switching to another process and probably other areas of the brain are activating(while some are relaxing)[2], don't know for sure but it feel easier after you set this milestone. Maybe it's a kind of a small achievement and assurance that you have done something immediately what you wanted to do.

First steps

By writing your ideas you create a basement for creating a script. The script is the walls for the creative process. If creative process has borders then it will be easier to produce a valuable graphical content by focusing on the subject. If the graphical content is great it sets the style and then animation makes it shine and adds senses to it. How motion design and writing are related to each other? The answer is the same - a lot. It's just not so obvious.

But starting writing is also can be uncomfortable at the beginning, and to simplify the process you just need to have small parts to be collected (previously named by you) and then start connecting them one after another. For example, if you have a cloud of words, that are somehow connected to the topic you're researching, it will be usefull to select some of them, which can be used for the script and planning. And start writing them, pairing with other words. Some words will be removed, cleaned up. But you'll have a control over the process and it will support your confidence. By collecting each word/part/piece you're building the structure.

If you have an unorganized project/script/plan, unfortunately you don't have this necessary structure. So cleaning up and organizing the "workshop" is increadibly important work and actually a part of the creative process. Even if it looks like less important and dirty thing, rather than adding cool Glow effect to your scene, it's a necessary step.

Some people having such organizing skills/habits grown with them from the childhood. Unfortunately, that's not me. My patience was studying somewhere apart from me. Probably it's the answer why organized girls usually having better artistic results in the motion design rather than overadvanced undisciplined guys. Everything is on the shelves. It's important.

After starting writing it's much easier to continue with each next word that you'll carve into the word editor, text field or simply into the notepad. It's important to have these tools (computer, notepad) to be always nearby, but better if it will be a dedicated place and defined the exact time, when you'll start writing. For me it's 2PM, everyday. Or at least each Thursday - the day before heavy-loaded Friday. Workload typically is minimal and I'm really comfortable with the thought that if something urgent appears it will be enough time till the end of the day. I just start writing anything that I have on my mind, and it leads to unexpected thoughts, that I can use later on in my creative process.

Overcoming Doubts

How this can be helpful? Maybe it's better to watch some decent film on Netflix, Youtube, watch news, play games? Maybe at the beginning the writing won't have any noticeable value certainly, but at least it will be a small step towards bigger results.[3] And also it sets you on a active thinking state of mind. Which is not too bad. I remember how it was hard for me to switch from my daily tasks to writing. Many new writers are having similar experience. I know it, so reacting less panically each time.

As I remember my goal in Spring was to set up a blog, did it on July 1-5 only. Tested many things during the month, created some posts. Then the goal on August 20 was to acquire a habbit to write regularly daily. Have set a recurring task in my calendar on 14th of September. Started to write my first big post on 15th. In short, it's an uncomfortable and slow process, I know it. But it's not necessary to go this long way. You can start everytime, just when you feel comfortable to share your inner world with your notepad. And it will be a time of freedom, creative freedom. At least for me it was so.

Have you felt something similar before in other activities? If yes, friend feel free to use a comment section and drop a couple of words about this activity, I'd like to try and feel it too. I guess it could be a remarkable feeling.

Conclusion

By returning to the title of the post I'm really hoping that this thought will be helpful for many motion designers who felt hopelessness time by time in a creative block. By switching from After Effects and Cinema 4D to the pencil and paper you can benefit more than from upgrading your computer. And even if you'll find that you've done something wrong - You'll definitely fix it much faster, just a little bit later. Anyways, it's better instead of holding your idea unborn for an infinite time in your head.

Release your great thoughts! Just Start. We're not ideal but we can fix everything later.

Sources

[1] Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

[2] Forget Focus—Here’s When Task Switching Makes You More Productive

[3] Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones