When the site went live six weeks ago, I thought sure, I could swing one new Profile a week. At that point I had spent so much time procrastinating that I didn’t want to allow myself any room to do more of the same. One a week seemed like a push but it didn’t seem unreasonable. If I work really, really hard I can do this, I thought.
I’ve come to realize this pace isn’t sustainable. Not for one person. Not for me, right now. Each Profile takes a significant amount of work, which leaves me with little time to focus on other parts of Polynate. Like building an audience, or updating and maintaining the website, or managing social media, or researching new and interesting businesses for future pieces, or say, designing business cards.
So, I’m switching things up. I’m going to release one new Profile every other week.
While I’ve been lucky to have a bit of help from writer friends and Tim, Polynate is essentially a team of one. This is less by choice than it is by consequence. Of course, I would love to work with talented and passionate people but last I checked, not a lot of folks are willing to work for free. So until Polynate is at that next level — whatever that may be — I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. I just need to make sure I find balance between writing new Profiles and everything else.
My biggest fear with Polynate is that I will inadvertently stray from what I want it to be. While truthfully that is still very much developing, I do know what I don’t want it to be. Number one on that list is half-assed. I don’t want to churn out half-baked Profiles to meet a deadline. I don’t want to make crappy graphics in haste. I don’t want to deliver generic Q&As because I didn’t have time to sit down and write interesting questions before my interviews. I don’t want to create something mediocre; I want to create something lasting and fantastic. And I want to give myself a fair shot at doing that, which means taking time to do the work and do it well.
On the flip side, I’m terrified of losing traction. The pace at which things have been developing and unfolding has been truly exciting to watch and monitor. Admittedly, I’m afraid if I slow down now I’ll lose that momentum. But I’m also afraid that if I don’t slow down now, I will burn out completely and that momentum will be even harder to recover. I guess we’ll just have to see.
With that, a new Profile will be released next Tuesday, December 16th. I hope you come back and check it out.
