We really, really need to think less and do more. That’s it. Make that your standard operating procedure for 2019. Think less and show up. Think less and just try something, anything. Put movement ahead of finesse. Effectiveness ahead of sophistication. Blisters of the hands, feet, and mind ahead of the refined. 

Definitions of Rough and Ready
A rough-and-ready solution or method is one that is rather simple and not very exact because it has been thought of or done in a hurry. Here is a rough-and-ready measurement. 

Rough, or crude, rude, unpolished, etc., but effective enough rough-and-ready methods;  Characterized by rough vigor and prompt action rather than refinement, formality, or nicety; a rough-and-ready fellow

How to Jump Start Rough and Ready

Exercises or Prompts Book
Today, with haste and not being very exact, find a book of exercises or prompts for your particular area of creativity by roughly searching an online bookstore, spending no more six minutes looking around. Throw it into your shopping cart and without a thought, purchase it.

Get the damn book and just follow the instructions.

Project Kits
There are all sorts of project kits available that have everything you need to a specified project or two. Most are aimed at the beginners market. We all know you are way too: skilled, sophisticated, smart, sagely to be messing around with some stinkin beginners kit. 

If you are stuck and not producing, regardless of experience, training, honors, achievements, awards, and recognition….you are a beginner again. Sorry.

Ok, let’s get back to the action:

Find some sort of kit related or roughly related to your field and be quick and rough about it. There are all sorts of kits out there, especially for people in the visual arts. With that said, if you are a performer and there is no kit then get a juggling kit. Or a harmonica in a day kit. Or a magic set. If you are a performer, perform. 

Get the damn kit and just follow the instructions. No one’s watching; your old friends from your MFA program aren’t around.

In case you are thinking (not a good idea) that I’m being too unpolished, crude, and not very exact in my emphasis on rough work versus polished procrastination, I offer these quotes:

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  – Mark Twain

“Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.” – Jules Renau

“I never worry about action, but only about inaction.” – Winston Churchill.

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.” – Zig Ziglar (not quite a Twain, Churchill, da Vinci, but I include it here to give you a rough, hasty and effective, pithy slogan).

P.S. If there are typos in this post or other mistakes…tough.