A while back there was a blogger who went by the name of The Bearded Iris. She was funny and she blogged about whatever crossed her mind. A fellow scrapbooking friend tuned me in to her blog by sending me a link to a post that highlighted a photo album The Bearded Iris’s mom had put together many years before.
The post was poking fun that her mom had used a STAPLER to fasten the pictures in the book with hastily written notes documenting just a bit of information for the photos. Often the staples were haphazardly placed with no regard to the content of the photos.
But her takeaway from that blog post, and what I quote to this day, was:
Done is better than perfect.
Yes, her mother could have used archival paper and cute photo corners. Sure, the albums could have been better curated with dates and locations and grouped by corresponding photos. Fine, maybe the lettering could have been even and contained better data. But at least she did SOMETHING.
This album was excellent because it was actually done. Because perfection, or the pursuit thereof, is debilitating. Seeking perfection is what often stalls us from doing absolutely anything at all. We all have a tendency to pursue the idea of a complete and perfect photo book but it is so overwhelming that we push it off to another day when we have more time, more energy, more photos to add, etc. But will that day ever come?
When we talk to people about Recap Books, we have found the greatest hesitation is that their feed doesn’t have everything on it. Or their captions weren’t good enough or weren’t added at all. Or maybe they didn’t post every trip they took. But capturing your social media photos in a book isn’t about it being a perfect record of your life. It’s about recognizing the time you spent to share your special moments and then creating a record of that for you to revisit and enjoy.
Will it be perfect? Yes!
You know why? Because it’s already done! All you need to do is convert the work you’ve already shared to a print version.
Done truly is better than perfect.
Bearded Iris, wherever you are, I thank you every day for that mantra.