But creators—from novelists to software engineers to AI prompt engineers—know a hidden truth:
It is the opposite of "slow and careful." It is fast, messy, and intentionally wasteful. generate discard
Instead of trying to write elegant code on the first pass, write the ugliest solution that solves the problem. Learn from it. Then hit delete and refactor. The Danger of Not Discarding Most people are good at generating. They are terrible at discarding. But creators—from novelists to software engineers to AI
The sculptor discards marble. The miner discards ore. The writer discards drafts. The AI artist discards renders. Then hit delete and refactor
Ask the AI for three very different versions of the same output. Reject the two that are "fine." Take the third one—the weird one, the broken one—and fix it manually. Or, use the AI to generate 10 variations of a logo or email subject line, then use your human judgment to discard the 9 that feel generic. 3. Software Development (Spike Solutions) In coding, a "spike" is a time-boxed exploration. A programmer will write a messy, hacky version of a feature just to see if it can work. Once they prove the concept, they discard the entire code and write it properly from scratch.
We suffer from the : "But I spent two hours writing that paragraph!" or "But the AI gave me a perfectly fine image!"