You should try a type B project

Last winter, I spent a couple of weeks designing fortune-telling cards. I took a regular deck of playing cards and either inked a little design, decoupaged, or otherwise decorated them. There was no predetermined fortune for the designs: I figured I’d worry about that (and customize it a bit) when I had people pull their cards.

It was probably my favorite creative endeavor of 2025. My friend Lacy also pointed out that I didn’t just make myself a little art project, I also ended up giving myself an improv challenge each time I read someone’s fortune. I cannot tell you where this idea came from (best not to peel back the layers of this freakshow onion), but I definitely had some lofty ideas when I first thought of it — which were then tempered by time (I wanted to present it to friends during a trip) and reality (52 unique ideas is a lot!).

Over the weekend, my friends were asking me about the advent calendar I made for Dave. I emphasized that it was as much for me as it was for him: I love a project! My friend Abbie commented that she has a tough time with that sort of thing, wanting to make things perfect. (For the record, her thing is baking and whatever she’s doing is working. Those cookies on Saturday were unreal.)

Honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever considered perfection when I undertake a project (for better or for worse). And if we’re really showing our full, round butts: I really don’t consider perfection, period. I am a human Muppet; most of what I create is 50% elbow grease, 30% whimsy, and 20% corners-cutting.

I’d like to present, then, the case for type B projects. A type B project is when you come up with a really cool and maybe even big idea, and then you see how far you can actually take it. You know that you won't be able to take it all the way, and that is good and fine. The goal is to start and finish.

Videos about being a type B personality have been all over social media lately. In a Guardian article on the trend, Christopher Soto, a psychology professor at Colby College, explains that the interest in type B personalities have grown as work culture has become more intense and productivity-focused. With a resistance to this constant hustle-culture pressure, folks may find the more relaxed type B mindset appealing.

This is where the type B project can really shine — and probably help your mental health! Each time I’ve done one of my type B projects, I feel a deep sense of completion. Like something very creative has been crossed off of my list. What I don’t feel is any desire to return to it with tweaks. I’m not aiming for it to be the best, but I am always trying to just do it.

I texted my friend Jackie about this. Jackie has some of my all-time favorite creative practices, in that she’s always trying something. She’s written books, participated in and hosted art shows, taught herself new mediums, and more. This is a person who once decided she would just start offering people cake whenever she could. Like, she would just whip up a box cake mix and decorate it beautifully and plop it on a nice cake stand. It is a CRIME that Jackie moved away from Chicago.

Her first response to my query about creative projects and perfection hit an important point: Freedom.

“Perfection is never really on my mind,” she told me. “I've been doing it all long enough to know perfection isn't possible.”

Jackie says that she embraces the suck, which is such a great description. Sometimes you really have to get out of your own way if you’re to put anything out in the world. Not everything is going to be a banger, so don’t expect it to be.

“I just crank shit out in a very intentional way,” Jackie says, explaining that she finds an intersection between being prolific and having perimeters. “I've been working on a painting series for two years. Finally finished it. Takes time to learn with it and fix mistakes, but I also cringe at working on it forever because I want it to be perfect.”

I really like this idea of wrapping up the project because it’s time for something else: You won’t be able to create more if you can’t stop polishing the first project. I think that’s where having an attitude of “done doesn’t mean it’s perfect” is key to a type B project. Being done, in this case, means just deciding you’re finished.

Jackie pointed me to Ira Glass’s “The Gap” theory. In essence, Glass believes that creatives have great taste, but for some time they can’t produce in a way that meets those great taste standards. 

“For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good,” Glass says. “It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.”

He talks about the importance of just doing the work, putting yourself on deadline, and producing. Jackie says she’s in her taste gap years with her visual art, and that “(e)verything I make or write is not great but that's what makes it beautiful and good to me right now. I trust the process of practice and making.”

There’s a lot of personal control and freedom in the type B project — something that took me a long time to realize as I started ramping up my own creative work in the last couple of years. I would love to create something that’s close to perfect, but I’ve found a lot of good comes from just doing something to the extent that my time, energy, and abilities allow. It’s wildly exciting to come up with the initial idea, and let it ramp up as I turn it around a bit. But I’ve also learned to really love how I flounder through the production itself: Maybe I can’t find the materials I wanted or I don’t remotely have the skillset to draw something — fine! I’ve still completed something and it may be more or less impressive than I initially imagined.

My favorite example of this has been the little notes I typed up for Dave’s advent calendar. This was the first time I used the typewriter I purchased last winter, and I struggled with it far more than I anticipated. I got frustrated for a few moments, but it’s actually kind of hilarious that what I typed up looks more like a ransom note than a festive coupon.

Yes, this is a conversation about letting go of perfection (blah blah, perfection is the enemy of progress). It’s also an argument for throwing caution to the wind and just seeing what comes from a wild idea and your free time. It could be crap! Like, not just “this wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be,” but actually really bad. It doesn’t matter! You still had an excuse to sit down with a gluestick, scissors, and four magazines.