The decision

This chapter asks you to decide something. It comes late because at the start it would have sounded like advice to stop caring, and you'd have been right to ignore that. By now you've seen that your standards and your dread are separate, and that the polishing past the line reaches no one. You've also seen that a single proper check catches more than a worried search does. So here's the decision.

I decide what done looks like before I start. When the work gets there, I check it once and send it.

Here's what it involves.

Four lines before starting. As in chapter 12, you write down who it's for, the grade, what done looks like and the sending time. For small jobs the grade alone will do.

A sending time that someone else knows. Tell the recipient when to expect it, and make that earlier than the last possible moment.

One check from a list. As in chapter 13. Leave a gap first if you can. Fix faults and leave preferences alone, and go through the list once.

Send in the same sitting, and don't reread. The work leaves your hands when the check ends.

Grades for other people's work too. Before you correct or redo something that someone else has done, ask what grade the job needed and whether it got there. If it did, leave it as they did it.

One record for a month. Write down what you feared and what happened, as in chapter 13. This is where you'll get your proof.

Plans of the "when this, then that" kind make a decision like this much more likely to survive a busy week. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran pooled 94 tests of such plans and found that they made people a good deal more likely to follow through. Here are three, which you can adapt.

When I open a blank document, then I'll write the four lines before anything else.

When I catch myself changing something back to what it was before, then I'll stop, run the check and send.

When I feel the wince, then I'll ask what specific fault a reader would notice, and if I can't name one I'll carry on.

The second plan uses the circle as an alarm. Chapter 1 said that a change you reverse is a sign you've passed the line. Until now the circle has been a private embarrassment, and from here on it's your cue to check and send. The third does the same with the wince. It used to mean "keep going". Now it prompts a question that has an answer.

Here's what to expect, and I'll be careful, because I can't promise you an outcome. In the first fortnight you'll feel worse at the moment of sending and better in the evenings. The discomfort at sending is sharp and doesn't last long. The free evenings will seem strange at first, and you may not know what to do with them. After a month or so, if your record looks like the one I expect, sending will have lost most of its sting. People may remark that you've become quicker. It's less likely that anyone will remark on a drop in quality, and if someone does, you adjust the line for that kind of work.

I can't promise that you'll be praised more, or promoted, or that you'll start enjoying your work again, though I think the last of those is likely. What I'd expect to change is that your work arrives when it's useful. The unsent things start going out. And the hours after the line, which are yours, stop being spent on differences no one receives.