How often does your quest for perfection get in the way of finishing your tasks? How much more time would you have for other things if good enough was exactly that...good enough?
Wouldn't you rather mark five things off your to-do list and spend time with your family or read a book that's been collecting dust rather than dwell for hours on one task trying to get the last details perfect?
What is stopping you? Who are you trying most to please most, yourself or someone else? Does it matter to them or are they quite happy with good enough, especially if it means they get to spend more time with you?
For the record, there is a difference between doing a perfectly adequate job and doing it poorly; just as there is a difference between striving for perfection and being satisfied with having done a perfectly adequate job. More completed tasks equals more progress which, in turn, provides a greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction than that one task which took hours.
From another perspective, there are those people who take immense pleasure in the intricate details of a project, and their satisfaction comes as much from the journey as from the completion itself. This is an entirely different thing.
Are you a perfectionist or a "good enough" kind of person?
If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Hi Linda - I do it good enough ... but sometimes err towards perfection ... but I think I've got lazier in old age ... and now it's done - that's the main thing. Now I must get on! Cheers Hilary
ReplyDeletePerfection is NOT my middle name and I am firm believer in doing it good enough. Life is too short to spend on perfection.
DeleteI am the world's worst at this. I have just finished a spreadsheet for 2016 because I had to go through every last one of my photographic records and make sure I had included all that I could include. And I wasted a lot of time trying to ID hoverflies I had absolutely no hope of identifying to genus, let alone species! I could have handed that sheet in months ago if I'd been able to say "good enough".
ReplyDeleteI think we have all spent way too much time on something that, in the end, would have been just fine with less effort. It is possible to over-think and over-do things.
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