Give yourselves the gift of the crappy first draft. 

Go on. 

Take an idea, puke it on the page. 

Trust me, you’ll feel better after.

Creatives, business owners, and anyone in charge of creating something from nothing; give yourselves the gift of the crappy first draft. 

In the writing world, many write about the importance of getting that first draft down and out into the world. Anne Lamott originally wrote about the “down draft” in her book, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions for Writing and Life” (1995).

“A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft — you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft — you fix it up.” 

Many have riffed off of this idea. One of my favorites is Wall Street Journal Bestseller Ann Handley, author of “Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content” (2014) shortened it to “TUFD,” or “The Ugly First Draft.” 

The genius of the concept is this – whenever you get any idea on the page, whether it is earth-shattering or not, is going to be ugly in its early iterations. 

It’s a little like this: 

We all like to think our newborns are just so precious. (And oh my, they are! Especially mine.) But it doesn’t change the fact that they come out sorta wrinkly, smushy, and making a lot of weird noises while producing crazy disgusting liquids. 

Our first drafts – of copy, content, or even business plans, are the same. 

We need to allow ourselves the crappy first draft. This blog had a crappy first draft, I promise! But I’ll never show it to you.

Because the reality is this – whenever we are creating something from nothing, it takes a lot of thought, motivation, time, energy, space, rethinking, and inspiration. No one, not even the best creatives, writers, and business people, can produce all of those things in one sitting. Maybe unicorns can. But not us human folk.

The solution to this? Create processes to allow yourself for Ann Handley’s TUFD. The genius is already inherent in TUFD (just like in your beautiful baby). Trust it to develop into something amazing. 

Maybe your process for creation looks something like this: 

Idea → Think about it, research it, dig into it→ TUFD→ SPACE to RETHINK → Revise → Revise again → Polish → Present/make public.

In my experience? Cranking out an ugly first draft actually helps you in a few key ways:

• It makes your work more coherent. Don’t do what you were taught in high school English (trust me, I taught it. I changed how I taught it.). Don’t try to break it up by section day by day. All that does is allow for your rethinking and space to alter each section from your original goals, and it makes for more disconnected projects in the end (or makes for more revision, and time is money).

• You end up spending less time drafting the actual idea. Good writing/creating is good thinking. Build in think time and thank me later. Plus, if your original idea truly was weird/crappy, you can just start over, no harm no foul.

• Coming back to any idea with fresh eyes benefits you and your purpose. Sometimes you just need to put it to bed for a bit. 

Whether you are proposing an idea to your boss, building your business, writing, or creating, remember TUFD. 

Let me know how it goes!

And writers, if you want to check out more of Ann Handley on her website, and her second edition of Everybody Writes is available here! I’m in no way affiliated with her; just find her work clear, accessible, and inspiring.