Replying to "Postmortems Help Address Causes of Errors" [Dface]

[Dface]

@Elliot

Mistakes aren’t something we should need to try to get rid of immediately in order to feel better.

I want to fix the mistakes I see immediately cuz i think that’s improvement and I can make progress. Is there a difference between improving your errors as you write and doing postmortems? I thought fixing a mistake immediately meant that Im improving and making progress. I’m thinking about stuff said in the How I Write a Lot article. I forgot exactly what was said. I know if I make a mistake about using “etc.” incorrectly I could look that up to do it right almost every time later. Is that different than making a mistake with an underlying cause?

I do get the feeling sometimes that when I make a fix to my writing that it’s not completely resolved. Something tells me I might revisit the issue in the future cuz i dont understand it all yet.

I found some quotes in How I Write a Lot :

@Elliot

But most people reading this probably already see plenty of imperfections in their writing, and if they write a lot more they will gradually improve.

I for sure see some imperfections in my writing. I’m starting to get more of an idea about the writing errors I make. I think the more I understand my writing problems the more effective my solutions will be.

I also saw some stuff from How I Write a Lot about fixing deep root causes:

@Elliot

Also, in general, I think you should try to fix writing errors primarily by changing how you think. Change your ideas that are the root cause of those errors.

That’s from postmortems I think. How would you change those root cause ideas? By investigating errors. It’s more efficient to fix root causes than individual cases of errors. I think that’s if there is a root cause.

Here’s another quote from the article:

@Elliot

Do you need to review your writing to fix errors and figure out how to get better? You can do that. Maybe doing that every 1-5 weeks is a good idea. But even if you don’t, if you’re reading this, I bet you’re the kind of person who will pick up on some problems and make improvements even with no organized attempt to do so.

How does it work to make improvements with no organized attempt? I see that you can pick up on some problems; that’s how you can fix them. Is that related to postmortems? Is making improvements the same as making fixes? I think when you write you for sure can make improvements by using knowledge about writing. If you write something correctly then that’ll literally make improvements to your writing. Like, if you use references to refer to too many things, you can pick up on that problem and figure out how to not confuse the reader.

There’s this other part from the article that’s interesting:

@Elliot

I think doing some structured attempts to improve could be more efficient if it doesn’t slow you down, but if it leads to procrastination or perfectionism then it could easily be less efficient.

I think you can say that it’s more effective to do postmortems for a post cuz you can work on fixing root cause of errors… Ohhh I see that it says it could be “more efficient”. That’s interesting cuz you could improve with less effort if you do something like a postmortem I think, but if it leads to procrastination or perfectionism then it might not be as effiecient. I think doing a post mortem is a structured attempt cuz you’re focusing on investigating errors and fixing them.

So if you manage to not slow down and do structured attempts to improve then that’s going to be really good. Writing a lot about stuff you find interesting still sounds useful tho. You don’t have to force structured attempts to improve. I think you for sure can find a place for them. That would help.