Welcome to my inaugural post! What follows is my best attempt to outline my approach to content creation for You, Me, & OCPD so that others can better understand the methods behind my madness. You can think of this post as a key or legend for all that follows.
Summaries & Outlines
Whenever my posts become too verbose or unwieldy, I’ll be sure to include either a Summary and/or Outline section so that they’re easier to navigate.
Summary
This post provides an overview of the various techniques I will utilize in my writings as well as my overall approach to creating content for You, Me, & OCPD going forward.
Outline
An Iterative & Collaborative Process
This is a big one! (but it started off small 😝). I stumbled across the concept of “minimum viable product” and it has been a real game changer for me.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
A focus on releasing an MVP means that developers potentially avoid lengthy and (possibly) unnecessary work. Instead, they iterate on working versions and respond to feedback, challenging and validating assumptions about a product’s requirements.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Minimum_viable_product
The beauty of approaching content creation from an iteration mindset is that I’m finally able to give myself permission to just start somewhere and get something functional out the door. This has probably been the single greatest example of “exposure therapy” for my OCPD-induced perfectionism and paralysis.
I’m now choosing the path of “messy action” where I prioritize getting something done over needing perfection before it can be released. Instead, I’ll strive to publish a version that is “good enough” to serve as a starting point and then slowly refine and build off of it over time. With that in mind, I’m thinking about including or publishing those version notes and highlighting those updates in some way, sort of like how journals disclose their editorial changes.
I also hope for this to be a collaborative process where others are able to provide comments and feedback that will improve the overall quality of resources for the whole community.
Have a reference or article that you think would be useful? Add it to the comments section for others to read and it might even get incorporated into the main post during a future revision. The goal is to have the most helpful content available for the OCPD community.
Video Content
I plan on embedding video versions of the posts I’ve written since I currently have all of the equipment necessary to create video content. My current thought process is that I’ll write out blog posts first so that I can then use it as a script or starting point for filming the video version. My fear with this approach, however, is that I’ll get sucked into the belief that I have to make the blog and video content exactly the same or else someone might have a different experience/understanding based on whichever medium they consumed. (Wow, it sounds like I have control issues or something!?)
My Tone
Hopefully this will become less of an issue once I have the videos up and you’re able to hear the tone of my voice. Until then, it feels relevant to convey that I’m both incredibly serious about and committed to the topic of mental health while simultaneously believing that we would stand to benefit from incorporating more levity and lightheartedness into our lives.
If your experience with OCPD has been anything like mine, you know how often it’ll leave you feeling anxious, stressed out, and like everyday situations are somehow life or death scenarios. Fortunately, I’ve been alive long enough to know that my catastrophizing isn’t justified and what I really need is the ability to step back and laugh at the sheer absurdity of some of my more irrational thoughts and fears. So don’t be surprised if you find a lot of jokes, silliness, and overall tomfoolery thrown into the mix. I have been known to be rather cheeky and sarcasm so I’ll try to make that as apparent as possible since I know a lot of meaning can get lost in text translation.
Another important aspect to acknowledge is my proclivity toward using metaphors, similes, idioms, stories, and pop cultural references to convey ideas and concepts. Personally (and I’m entirely bias on this) I believe stories and metaphors to be some of the most effective “Trojan horses of truth”. They have the ability to transport or disguise truth in such a way that it is able to slip past the ever-vigilant defenses of our egosyntonic personality disorders cut to the core of us.
My Textual Flourishes
Links
When it comes down to whether or not links should open in a new tab or the current one by default, best practices still seem to be split fairly evenly. Given that, I’ve chosen to default to opening links in new tabs since, more often than not, I’ll be using them to add flavor. If they’re ever critical to the plot I’ll be sure to embed a pull quote like I did in the “An Iterative Process” section above.
Essentially, you’ll find me sprinkling in random links whenever I think a reference is too tangential/complex/obscure/dumb/silly to warrant direct inclusion in my post. You can just think of them as poorly concealed easter eggs. (Congrats, you found another one!)
(Asides)
The ADHD side of me loves to use parentheses to insert superfluous asides/digressions/footnotes that I hope will add even more personality and flavor to my writings. These asides usually range anywhere from silly to sassy but I’ll try to note when they’re sincere (after all, who doesn’t love a little more spice!?).
Backslashes/etc.
The exceptionally indecisive part of me (not sure if it’s ADHD/OCPD/or both?) loves to use backslashes when I have a list or stack of synonyms that I can’t bear to edit down any further. I use it as a sort of shorthand for “take your pick” or even “take all of these together as a run-on/combo/multiplier effect” instead of defaulting to traditional commas. (But while we’re on the subject, I’m #TeamOxfordComma and I’m willing to die on this hill!)
Post Tags
With time I anticipate there being a lot of content so I’m committing to adding relevant tags to each post now so that they’re easier to navigate in the future.
Future Additions
Like I mentioned above, I reserve the right to revisit old posts and update them for various reasons. The most obvious motivation would be to provide more factually accurate information but it might also arise out of a desire to clarify something or inject a fresh perspective for new life experiences.
