Abhishek Nair

So my daily routine for past couple of days has been some what of a unique experience. Occasionally, I would spend couple hours of my day listening to podcasts or reading blog posts and I would come to the following conclusion ‘damn, why didn’t I think of that?’

This week, I stumbled across a podcast episode that was hosted by Tim Ferris interviewing Safi Bahcall – On Thinking Big, Curing Cancer, and Transforming Industries. Safi is a second generation physicist, a biotech entrepreneur and a writer with his recent book called the Loonshots.

There was a key message that was shared by Safi in which he describes that the complexity of writing can be broken down into stages: hunting, drafting and editing. Hence, he introduces the idea of FBW.

Use of Acronym – FBW: Fast Bad Wrong. He suggests the solution of FBW allows one to start throwing and implementing ideas on a piece of paper as fast as possible, and not care about perfecting the piece of work during the drafting stage.

Practice of FBW – You achieve liberation when you start implementing your ideas at a rapid face, and not a care about your syntax, grammar. A continuous pace that flows with your writing and not a single care to backtrack on your incorrectly spelt words. It honestly feels like a car travelling downhill on cruise control.

Coming across this acronym, I have written this piece with such an ease. I have found a sense of relief not constantly worrying about what should I write and how should I go about writing it. Then, at a later date revisit to commence the editing stage from a fresh set eyes. I think FBW provides an advantage to anyone pursuing creative endeavours, so take this step like a rabbit, and not a turtle.