I felt it a lot, the guilt of not working hard enough on my presentation before the defense, especially after submission of the application while waiting for the results to come in. It took a few weeks to know if we are going to defend our crazy design and during that time i’ve probably put 2% effort in average of the amount of effort i put when we worked on the design.
If you are in that stage you probably read many blogs about VCDX journey by now, many are saying to start working on the presentation a minute after you submitted the application and not to wait for the results.
This is indeed a precious time that might be considered “gone to waste” if not used, i can imagine that this approach might work for some but allow me to offer a different perspective. The fact is you have worked on your design vigorously for sevral months, hopefully that’s enough time to get you to know your design in a good level, maybe not everything by heart but enough to get you going with the presentation. While preparing the application I emptied a lot of my energy tanks in a concentrated effort towards the deadline, I understandably felt an energy drop at that point.
Creativity is the strong side of my work, not the details, i was never the best with small details, that is why I am much better working in a team.
To get to high levels of creativity one needs to love what he is doing, it helps to read books (real ones not just tech stuff) and it requires brain energy. Energy can come when there is a sense of purpose which is very hard to grasp when you are WAITING for results, but it also require rest, to think about other things.
In my opinion it is perfectly fine to rest before knowing you are going to defend, some VCDXs might say this is criminal by me to say this but you will need it. Because once you will get the notification you will accelerate from 0-100 in 3 seconds working on your presentation/doing mocks 24X7.
There is limited of how many times a person can do the same thing in the level of intensity required before that person cant do it anymore, we didnt want that to happen to us a week before the defnse.
Manage your time, work on the presentation but take it easy and get your creativity juices flowing, spend time with your family after the last few weeks you have been away working on the design, and feel guilty, that’s OK too.
If your a strong believer in creativity in our line of work you might also want to read @vmiss33 very good article “The V in creativity” to boost it up a notch
Good luck
Niran
