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Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

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41–50 of 134 posts

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#41
Perfectionism is too short a label, and could be one or many of multiple underlying issues. Ultimately, you seem aware of the tendency, so ask yourself: why can't I do "good enough" and move forward?

Maybe the fear of actually doing something outweighs the costs of not doing it under the guise of making it better? Maybe something else?

I found Bezos's thoughts on decision making useful: understand if the decision is a two way door, and if so, move forward with 70% of the data you wish you had. Or 70% of the product, implementation, whatever.

See e.g. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to...

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#44
post #10

Whenever I start caring too much about something, I pull up the "pale blue dot" image ( https://funnyjunk.com/The+pale+blue+dot/funny-pictures/52789... ) and remember that I will die long before Voyager will make it even 10% to the next star. All of humanity, including us, is just a tiny speck in an unimaginably vast and uncaring universe. Some people find that terribly upsetting, but to me it also means freedom beca…

Pale blue dot page from NASA (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-b...)

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#45

    Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away
    
    - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It's a great quote, and something to live by. When innovating, I iterate and build things piece by piece, often taking away more than I add.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#46
post #2

The mantra, "A timely wrong decision is often better than no decision," has been helpful in my life. (my own adaptation of Kelly Johnson's statement here: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/97803-skunk-works (search for "wrong decision") )

There is no such thing as no decision; delaying a certain decision is a way of deciding it, and is always on time.

The one I've found helpful, somewhat similar, is that if you don't make the decision, the decision will be made for you.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#48
As you work on a project, you will slowly lose motivation without results. You can supplement motivation by changing the project slightly and adding novel little goals that can act like miniature projects to complete in order to have intermediate results. This is what we do naturally, and the process usually spirals out of control. Don’t worry about perfectionism. You need to set a goal that will give a reasonable guarantee that you will outrun your loss of motivation. This means you need to go FAST. Very fast. Neck breakingly fast and shitty. You need to stay entirely focused on exactly what the goal is, and this goal must be clearly defined. In some sense you have to sit down and plan perfectionism out of the way you write the goal. The faster you go, the less chance you give yourself to wiggle out of the goal and make the project more complex than it needs to be. YAGNI is basically the name of the game. Nothing abstracted beyond strict necessity, nothing engineered beyond the scope of the project, you need to engineer the very way you attack the problem. From personal experience, I slip into perfectionism when I lose motivation, and use it as a kind of procrastination. If you retain motivation, you will keep your eyes on the well-defined prize.

Finally, if you can help it, don’t work on projects that you can’t stay motivated for. If you’re doing a startup or research or something where the motivation is entirely internally generated, I think this is the way to do it. If you have a day job well, it’s way harder, and I empathize with you.

Re: Ask HN: How did you overcome perfectionism?

#50
Probably to consider a larger set of problems including the one you are trying to perfect, and solving that overall problem as best as possible. Your pursuit of perfectionism would result in a different approach taken because the flaws present themselves differently

Additionally, thinking about what else could be made improved or closer to perfect instead of what you are trying to do perfectly. What else could be improved? Is that more valuable? What would deteriorate in your pursuit of making something perfect?

It's hard, if not impossible, but at least worth considering.

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