Don’t Let Perfection be the Enemy of Good

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough. You’ve heard this saying, right?

Even though I’ve heard this many times before, I have to keep reminding myself of that. Let’s talk (briefly).

Here’s example in my mind that just happened a moment ago. I caught myself almost letting Perfection be my Enemy that prevented me from Getting Things Done.

The thoughts running through my head: “I need to sit down and write a blog article for TaleOfWealth! I’ll time box this to 25 minutes and just get it down before I need to leave for family obligations.”

I grab my MacBook and my water bottle and feel the weight of the water bottle–it’s about a quarter full. Uhoh. I feel an immediate pull and _need_ to go fill the bottle of water first, then drink, and then get down to whatever task is at hand…

Here’s what’s wrong with this. Here I am at the leading edge of a productivity wave to sit down and write my thoughts to screen to become a future blog article. The energy and engagement is high, I just need to catch the wave and ride the wave in. Easy, bam, boom, done! BUT, if I had paused for a moment to go fill my bottle of water first, the door would have opened to the possibility of interruption, and of becoming distracted. And then, before I know it, the motivation wave edge is gone and I’m no longer in that headspace to do the thing I had intended to do in the first place!

Minutes is all it takes to miss that wave. That’s way the flaring technique works so well to overcome procrastination. The flaring technique is where you set a 2-minute timer and force yourself to sit down and start working on that thing you really don’t feel like doing. You make a deal with yourself where if at the end of 2-minutes you want to stop you can, but you have to make an honest try for those two minutes. Invariably, what I find happens is at the end of 2-minutes I find a bit of a groove and need “just a few more minutes and I’ll be done.” It’s a synthetic productivity wave, if you will.

Coming back to my example scenario then. The ideal scenario and outcome is one where I think: even though the water bottle is not totally full, it’s got about a quarter left in there, and that’s plenty for what I need right now in this moment to crank out this task. By the time I’m done with the task, the water is gone because I’ve drunk it, and then I can go refill the bottle. Win-Win.

And there you have it. A Lesson Learned from my every day lift that popped into my head. Every day I need to remind myself of this Lesson Learned because I am a dyed to the wool completionist. So come with me, catch those waves or productivity and don’t let perfection be the enemy of your good.