Does 'Done And Dusted' Have A Happy Ending?

When I first bumped into that phrasing on a café wall poster, it felt punchy and true — but I also winced at the grammar. The line that gets quoted a lot is, in its clearest form, It always seems impossible until it's done. Most reputable sources attribute that sentiment to Nelson Mandela, and that version is the one you'll see in quote collections and biographies. What trips people up is the way the phrase hops from speech to social media: contractions get added, tense shifts, and sometimes people accidentally stitch words together into clumsy variants like "it's always seems impossible," which is just a slip in spoken haste. Beyond the tiny grammar police moment, I think the bigger phenomenon is paraphrase-by-feel. Folks love to make quotes sound like the way they would say them — adding "it" or "it's" or swapping a verb tense — and that spreads faster than the original. I've seen it misattributed occasionally too, with people tagging other public figures or leaving the author out entirely. If you care about accuracy, the safe move is to use the clean version and name Mandela when possible, or check a reliable quote archive or the original speech transcript if you need to be formal. For casual use, though, I forgive the variations; they usually keep the spirit even if the wording gets messy, and that spirit has helped me grit through deadlines more than once.

I get a little thrill every time I think about this line because it feels like a tiny, hard nugget of truth dropped into the middle of chaos. In 'Macbeth' the phrase 'What's done is done' is spoken to calm and steady — it comes in Act 3 when Lady Macbeth is trying to soothe Macbeth's frayed nerves after the terrible chain of events they set in motion. At face value it simply means the past is fixed: you can't unmake an action, so dwelling on it won't change what happened. It's practical, blunt, and meant to move someone out of paralyzing regret and back into action. But the way Shakespeare uses it is deliciously complicated. For me, watching a production years ago, that line landed as both consoling and chilling. Lady Macbeth is trying to hold things together, to convince herself and her husband that they can contain the mess they've created. Yet the play then shows the slow, relentless return of conscience — sleepwalking scenes, haunted visions, and a sense that some things refuse to be brushed aside. Later she even says, 'What's done cannot be undone,' which flips the consoling tone into a tragic realization: the past won't just pass quietly; it will gnaw. So the phrase is both a coping mechanism and, ironically, an early hint of doom. I also like how the line travels out of its original context into everyday life. People use 'what's done is done' when they want to stop ruminating about a mistake — on a forum, in a text to a friend, or even in a workplace after a screw-up. But Shakespeare’s usage reminds me to be cautious: sometimes moving on is wise, and sometimes the refusal to reckon with consequences simply lets problems fester. As a reader and theater-goer, I find the tension between stoic acceptance and moral accountability to be the most interesting part. It’s a short phrase with a lot of emotional baggage, and that’s why it sticks in my head whenever I’m weighing whether to forgive myself or fix what I can.

I love that little line — it feels like folklore now, but it actually comes from William Shakespeare. He wrote the phrase in the tragedy 'Macbeth', and the line appears in Act 3, Scene 2. In the play, it’s Lady Macbeth who utters the curt comfort "What's done is done" as she tries to steady Macbeth after they’ve both been pulled into murder and its fallout. The cool part is that the phrase is meant to sound decisive, but the play later dismantles that neatness: guilt keeps rising until sleepwalking and madness, which makes the line bittersweet rather than truly consoling. If you like dates and editions, scholars date the writing of 'Macbeth' to around 1606, during the early Jacobean period — Shakespeare was writing for a court that had fresh anxieties about regicide and power after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The play was first collected in the First Folio of 1623, but composition and likely early performances were a decade or so earlier. I find it neat to think about a packed indoor theater in London, candlelight and all, when that throwaway sentence landed and started echoing for centuries. It’s a tiny line with huge cultural life, and whenever I read it I imagine both the stage and the quiet aftermath where the real consequences live.

Honestly, when I hear 'What I've Done' I always feel the song reaching for a clean slate — like someone finally saying out loud that they need to change. The band wrote those lyrics during the 'Minutes to Midnight' era when they were pushing away from the heavier nu‑metal label and trying to be more direct and human in their words. The lines are spare but charged: it's confession, it's accountability, it's the desire to erase or at least confront past mistakes. I liked hearing that the song wasn't just theatrical anger; it was personal and also global. The video piles on images of violence, fame, and environmental damage, which turns a personal apology into a collective mirror. Musically the track puts the voice and that stark chorus front and center, so the words land. For me, it’s the kind of song you sing badly in the car and somehow feel lighter afterward — like admitting something half‑out loud makes it easier to start fixing it.

When I’m sketching out a season, my desk looks like chaos: sticky notes on the monitor, a stack of index cards, my phone full of voice memos. For the actual heavy lifting I lean on a mix of specialist and general tools. Final Draft still feels like the industry lingua franca for tight script formatting and page-based timing, but for real-time collaboration I jump into WriterDuet or Google Docs so people can annotate and riff together. Scrivener and Notion are my go-to for storing research, scene fragments, and character dossiers; I love how Notion can hold episode bibles, scene lists, and a rolling to-do board in one place. When ideas need visualizing, Milanote or Trello become my index cards — draggable, color-coded, and great for beat sheets like Save the Cat! I also use Obsidian for linked notes when I’m building complex lore, because the bidirectional links make every connective tissue show up like a map. For table reads and remote sessions, Zoom with an Otter.ai transcript saved to Dropbox or Google Drive is a life-saver; having searchable text from a read-through speeds revisions exponentially. For production logistics I peek into StudioBinder or Movie Magic for scheduling and call sheets. And when I’m procrastinating, I let a tool like ChatGPT or Sudowrite spitball scene sparks — then I always immediately move back into a structured tool to keep everything version-controlled. Honestly, the trick isn’t one perfect app; it’s the habit of moving between ideation, drafting, and organizing tools so nothing falls through the cracks.

When I'm in the thick of pre-production and the calendar looks like a Jenga tower, 'Getting Things Done' becomes my sanity kit. I capture everything—emails, location scouting notes scribbled on napkins, producer calls, vendor quotes—into one inbox so nothing evaporates. Then I clarify: is the item a hard date (call time), a next action (email the location manager), or simply reference (past invoices)? I organize by project and context: 'Episode 3', 'Location', '@phone', and use a calendar only for hard commitments. Next-actions lists become my detailed to-do map, while a weekly review is my checkpoint to re-prioritize and spot dependencies. I build simple checklists for shoot days (crafty contacts, permits, power needs) and use a tickler file for items that surface later. Tools like Google Calendar, Notion, and a lean task app let me delegate tasks and cc producers so everyone knows the status. What really changes is the calm: I stop treating the schedule like a static beast and start treating it as a set of manageable moves. Try a 15-minute capture session every morning and watch the spiral straighten out.

I've cycled through a lot of listening habits over the years, and when I want practical, creative-friendly systems I usually start with 'Getting Things Done' (the official show from the David Allen camp) and 'Beyond the To-Do List'. The first is great for the conceptual backbone — inbox, next-actions, projects, and that sacred weekly review — while 'Beyond the To-Do List' is interview-forward, so you hear how authors, designers, and entrepreneurs actually adapt those ideas to messy creative lives. I pair both with a lighter, motivational show like 'The Creative Pep Talk' for mindset shifts and short tactical nudges. If I'm trying to change how I work, I set a simple listening plan: one foundational episode (GTD basics), one applied interview (a 'Beyond the To-Do List' guest talking systems), and one pep talk to keep momentum. I take one-page notes in whichever tool I'm testing — sometimes Notion, sometimes a paper notebook — and force myself to implement just one tweak that day. That little ritual makes the theory stick, and after a couple weeks I've usually built a habit I actually keep using.

I get a kick out of helping authors figure this stuff out — there are more places to sell finished books in both print and ebook than most people realize, and each one has its own flavor and trade-offs. For pure reach and convenience, I usually point folks to Amazon KDP first. KDP handles both Kindle ebooks and print-on-demand paperbacks (and now hardcovers in some regions). The upload process is pretty streamlined: EPUB or KPF for ebooks, print-ready PDF for interiors, and a cover file sized to the trim. KDP is great for speed and visibility on Amazon, but the trade-offs are Amazon-centric royalties and the option of KDP Select exclusivity if you want Kindle promotions — that’s useful if you plan price promotions or free days, but it means you can’t sell the ebook elsewhere while enrolled. If I’m aiming for real bookstore availability or want library distribution, I usually add IngramSpark into the mix. Ingram runs a massive distribution network (bookstores, libraries, independent sellers globally) and their print quality and retailer acceptance are top-notch. The upload is a little more meticulous — you’ll want clean PDFs, correct spine calculations, and a properly formatted ISBN. In my experience, mixing KDP for Amazon retail presence with IngramSpark for everything else is the most pragmatic setup. For authors who prefer a single aggregator to handle multiple ebook retailers (Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play), Draft2Digital and PublishDrive are excellent: they distribute ebooks widely with a simple dashboard, and Draft2Digital now offers paperback print distribution options too. Kobo Writing Life, Barnes & Noble Press, Apple Books, and Google Play Books are worth uploading to directly if you care about niche audiences — Kobo is great internationally, B&N helps with the US bookstore market, and Apple is essential for iOS-focused readers. A few other practical notes I always tell friends: Lulu and BookBaby are solid if you want author services (editing, design) plus distribution; they do both print and ebook. Smashwords is older and focused on ebooks to smaller retailers, while services like BookFunnel and Prolific Works handle direct ebook delivery for promos. Don’t forget library channels — OverDrive/Bibliotheca access often comes through distributors like Ingram or specialized services. Also, plan for ISBNs, proof copies, print cost math (royalties are after printing), and file specs — investing time in a good interior and cover pays off. If you want, I can walk through a recommended step-by-step checklist for a single book launch based on your priorities (maximum reach, bookstore presence, or indie-only control).