Ask for Feedback Before Jumping Into Specific Ideas
When you’re working on an idea, it’s tempting to wait until it’s complete to get feedback. However, you can block yourself from ideas by waiting.
As writer Seth Godin explains, the very nature of waiting for feedback means that all the decisions you make along the way cannot be questioned. You are locked up because you have already done the work and it would be too difficult to return. This could mean that you are missing out on some alternative ideas:
If someone asks, “Can you view this deck of slides?” several anchors are already built in. Anchor: there are slides. Anchor: six slides. Anchor: Slides have text.
Before we can even talk about whether there should be a presentation at all or whether it is worth presenting, we are already tied to slides, text and length. The correct tip might be: Make a presentation, but not a slideshow. This could be: Use 100 slides. But such things rarely happen, because the whole discussion was fixed from the very beginning.
Once you’ve settled on your original idea, all those little commitments along the way are fine with you. However, if you’ve never asked for an opinion at the start of your project, you might want to put in a little effort. Instead, seek feedback on your ideas as early as possible to avoid costly mistakes.
Anchor Can Drown You | Seth Godin