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Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#121

Post by copperx »

deweller wrote: post #15

Perfectionism can be a symptom of codependence. Codependence is a loaded word, but understand that many, many people struggle with codependence to some degree. Us codependent personalities gain our sense of well-being based on what others think about us. So, everything has to be perfect because the prospect of rejection is very scary. I view a rejection of my work as a rejection of me to an exaggerated degree. If thi…

We are wired to react to how others perceive us. I wouldn't call that codependency, which is a term that should only be used in substance abuse scenarios.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#122

Post by esel2k »

I just listened to a podcast this week regarding perfectionism: https://changeworklife.com/is-perfectionism-holding-you-back...

Some excerpts: - Don’t forget celebrating successes - 'done is better than perfect' - ‘if you're not embarrassed by the first iteration of your product, then you've shipped too late…’

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#123

Post by deweller »

copperx wrote: post #121
deweller wrote: post #15

Perfectionism can be a symptom of codependence. Codependence is a loaded word, but understand that many, many people struggle with codependence to some degree. Us codependent personalities gain our sense of well-being based on what others think about us. So, everything has to be perfect because the prospect of rejection is very scary. I view a rejection of my work as a rejection of me to an exaggerated degree. If thi…

We are wired to react to how others perceive us. I wouldn't call that codependency, which is a term that should only be used in substance abuse scenarios.

Codependency became broadly known in the context of relationships involving alcohol and substance abuse.

But it's definition is much broader than that. And, I would argue, much more common.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#124

Post by simonw »

burntoutfire wrote: post #119
simonw wrote: post #18

I keep coming back to the old Reid Hoffman quote: "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." I also constantly remind myself that "perfect is the enemy of shipped". A useful thing to remember is that you are the ONLY person that knows how beautiful the thing you were planning to build was going to be. What you've actually built is always going to be disappointing compa…

> I keep coming back to the old Reid Hoffman quote: "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." I also constantly remind myself that "perfect is the enemy of shipped". Unfortunately, I believe that this philosophy is largely behind our current software being the shit it is. Seemingly basic features in absolutely fundamental softwares are broken or majorly suck (e.g. pyt…

I don't think this quote is incompatible with a desire to ship high quality products.

The Reid Hoffman thing is about your initial launch. In my experience, until you've got real human beings using your thing you have absolutely no idea what it is you're even building: you could spend a full extra year working on features that no-one will ever actually use.

So getting early feedback is crucial. But that doesn't mean that, once you've figured out what people actually need, you should continue to be embarrassed by what you are building.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#125

Post by mcdws »

overcome come perfectionism by doing more. important things will fall out of the cracks in the software. then you can focus on the issues that arise from the cracks. so simply put, if youre suffering from perfectionsim, youre not spreading yourself out enough, i.e. too narrow minded. this forces you to make mistakes and mistakes are sometimes good.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#127

Post by mickduprez »

The book 'The Toyota Way' and a book by Shigeo Shingo (helped develop the TPS) - 'Kaizen and the art of creative thinking' changed the way I think about completing tasks or achieving goals. While they are more based on manufacturing the lessons hold up well for any discipline. Basically, once you realise that everything has room for improvement (nothing is ever perfect!) and it's consistent small changes/improvements that make things better, it takes the pressure off trying to do things exactly right the first time. Treat tasks/projects as experiments, come up with a few hypothesis, pick one, do it and asses how it went and what can be improved or throw it away. At least you're getting stuff done and you might just end up with something better than you would by trying to force a perfect job/product from start to finish.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#129

Post by meken »

I think perfectionism is rooted in a fear of rejection and ultimately a lack of confidence.

Exposure therapy can help.

So, practice intentionally shipping something with a missing feature, or intentionally getting rejected. Doing both of these things mindfully, noticing how uncomfortable it makes you feel.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#130

Post by ornornor »

blyry wrote: post #66

At my first job I had a more experienced coworker, and I couldn't understand why he wrote code the way he did. Copy pasted stuff everywhere, never added abstractions, stuff was 30 lines when it could've been 5 and a base class. Yaknow what? He got 10x the amount of work done that I did. 'perfect' doesn't mean 'pure, clean, never needing to be rethought', 'perfect' to him meant 'meets requirements'. 99% of the time, n…

I too have worked with people like that. The marketing and PHBs love them because all they see is that they deliver 10x faster than the rest of the team (who, therefore, must be subpar and not very competent).

What they never realize is that when things break (and they will, when there are no unit tests, copy pasted code in several place, and inscrutable architecture that no one but the one who wrote it understands), it takes the rest of us 10 times as long to poorly fix/implement the new requirement.

Given enough time, the original 10x engineer moves on or quits, and all he’ll breaks lose because the department or company is left with a giant pile of turd that breaks whenever you look at it.

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