Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it

But even when it comes to personal projects it's useless to work on the same project forever. Often that stunts growth (new pieces teach you new things) and it also makes you a lot less prolific. I've met so many artists who let the fear of not being perfect stop them from drawing much at all. They fidget over the same drawing for months and even when they finally finish it's because they give up, hate what they made and are sick of looking at it. Something they might have been passionate about is now a source of sadness and frustration to the point they don't want to do it anymore. There is no such thing as perfect. Even the best masterpieces in history had to be declared "finished" at some point.

1. Being in the zone is good, but you may be functioning mostly on instinct, so the more experience you have, the better results you ll get. By that I mean that it s where that thing called craft helps you. You then have some techniques that you can rely on, and not only your gut feelings.

2. While being in the zone, it's still good to jump out of it and criticize your own work (as in you always have to be your best critic). It s almost as if criticizing yourself should be a reflex, part of your instinct. Sometimes I imagine someone commenting what I do and me trying to defend my work. If I can't defend it well, that means I better look into :)

And I've mentioned that in another comment, but that applies to any work, whether it is considered creative or technical (knowing that there is a big overlap between those). As a person doing films and web app, my thinking is not very different from one to the other.

(Thanks to you for making me think about this)

I used to do whatever I felt like, and typically, I was doing the hardest tasks first. I would leave the little stuff. "Oh that's easy, I can just do that at the end".

Creating social media accounts was the last thing on my TODO list. One day, I thought I'd apply Dave Ramseys "Pay off your debts smallest to largest" principle to my technical debts.

One of the first things I did was create social media accounts. And a bunch of other small stuff that was biting at me.

Another decision I made was to launch earler with fewer features. Why? Because many of the sample use cases (the simple ones), didn't need the more advanced features.

So, smallest to largest dictates that I must make the easy samples before I finish the advanced features. And, if I have samples, I can launch.

So, my perfectionism was a symptom, but the problem was my priority system: hardest to easiest, not easiest to hardest.

(Inevitably, someone will write about "do your hardest task in the morning when you have the most energy". Well, I freelance in the morning when I have the most will power, so this is moot. Doing tasks easiest to hardest gives the most accomplishments earliest [ more items checked off the todo list ], which provides positivity and motivation to keep going.

Imagine the scenario:

You have 3 hours to work, you do your hardest task, which takes 5 hours. You don't get it done, and think "omg I didn't finish and I still have 9 other things to do".

Or, you do your easiest tasks first. Most take 5-10 minutes. You finish 5 tasks in your 3 hour window, and think, Geez! I'm really productive today! I should keep working, so you work another 2 hours and get 6, 7, 8 done.

Momemtum is key. Doing easy tasks first creates success feelings that make you work longer. It also frees up mental space ( you no longer need to mentally track those tasks ).

Launch is almost always EASIER than the hard PERFECTION features that a perfectionist makes.

But I would call this: just my fucking job. Not perfectionism. But I realise also: I'm wrong. Tons of people are unable to do this and call this ability perfectionism, as if it's something bad.

Smart people spend lots of time learning, thinking about things, and relying on their (often overactive) imaginations. It's not surprising that spending so much time in your own head can sometimes lead you astray.

A helpful response would be to reassure and encourage your peers. Point out when there's objective evidence that they are doing a good job, because they may not be able to see it on their own.

In this light, the attitude displayed by the current top level commenters is extremely disappointing [0,1]. Insinuating that your coworkers are slow or out of their depth in circumstances like these is counterproductive. IMHO, this "maybe you're just not good enough" attitude is one of the most toxic aspects of living in silicon valley and the bay area.

I am a perfectionist, and I know that I waste gobs of time over-analyzing absolutely everything [2]. I also know that my best work only happens when I force myself to set aside that perfectionism and just start. It doesn't matter if it's terrible, it doesn't matter if I picked the wrong library -- wasting more time over-analyzing everything never gets me anywhere, and leaves me feeling miserable at the end of the day.

I know, objectively, that this is the case, and yet I still hesitate to start big projects, and still attempt to use spreadsheets to plan the most trivial of things. It's not an easy habit to break, but it's absolutely worthwhile to keep trying. I owe a lot to the peers and managers who have helped me stay on track.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16335156

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16334873

[2] https://xkcd.com/1952/