The practice of 'deliberate undoing'

The Idea

We often think of craft as adding skills, refining techniques, or learning new methods. But there’s another, less obvious path to mastery: deliberate undoing. This is the conscious process of unlearning ingrained habits, assumptions, or approaches that, while once useful, now hinder further progress. It’s about stripping away the scaffolding that helped you build something, because it’s no longer serving the structure. A seasoned writer might deliberately unlearn reliance on complex sentence structures to find a more direct voice. A skilled carpenter might unlearn a specific joint technique to explore more efficient or elegant alternatives. This isn’t about forgetting, but about creating space for better ways to emerge.

One Question

What is one ‘automatic’ way you do something in your craft that you could deliberately challenge or unlearn today?

Today’s Action

1. Identify a small, routine task in your craft that you do on autopilot. It could be how you start a project, organize your tools, or approach a common problem.
2. For the next hour, commit to doing that task differently, even if it feels awkward or slower at first. Break one of your own ‘rules.’
3. Reflect on what felt different, what new insights emerged, and what familiar comfort you had to let go of.

Go Deeper

Our default ways of working can become invisible prisons. Deliberate undoing is a quiet rebellion against that comfort, a patient pursuit of better work through subtraction rather than addition. It’s the craft of making yourself new again, one old habit at a time.