“Art is never finished; it is only abandoned.”
This quote, often attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, is one of my favorites. It reminds me that, no matter how much time we spend writing, it is never really done—we just reach a point where we have to stop.
This idea applies to all types of writing—indeed, to all types of art. That includes technical writing. I’m sure there are many who don’t see technical writing as art, but that’s only because tech writers rarely have the time luxury of poring over their text, shaping paragraphs, honing phrases, refining words. We write until someone says “ship it!” and off it goes.
But just because something is good enough for now doesn’t mean it’s good enough forever. And I think it’s a mistake to ignore the words we wrote just to focus on the words we’ve yet to write. That practice leads to massive doc sets with outdated content. It’s a sort of tech debt that causes all sorts of problems—especially now, when we ask AI agents to do the reading for us.
It’s important, then, to think not just about how to apply quality once, but how to apply it consistently. That means knowing when to start, as well as when to stop. It means viewing quality not as a box you check, but as something that moves—forward if you tend it, backward if you don’t.
Da Vinci may be right; we do not stop making art, we only abandon it. But we don’t have to be so quick about it.