The book "The Now Habit" offers the perspective that many people who procrastinate suffer from perfectionism. That is, they are so concerned with achieving an idealized result that they are unable to even begin, lest they fail.
Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
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Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#42If you consider your work a 1.0 then you accept 'shortcomings'. It's important that you are able to deliver that 1.0 and that despite its shortcomings, it does what it was supposed to do and value is derived from it (in the broadest sense possible).
The real value is in knowing what is important and what is not. The real value is to be able to make sane tradeoffs within a particular context.
That is how to get things done.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#43I'm really skeptical of this attitude. In a lot of fields I've seen people who commit themselves to "just getting it done." The result is that they do get a lot of work done: and it's bad, it's mediocre, it doesn't have value. On the other hand, one can easily think of creators who spent a long time on one work (maybe "too much" time), and the result was work of lasting value. Of course, this relates more to artistic…
Maybe paintings can't be "fixed" once they are done, but software can always be improved, refactored or even completely rewritten if it takes off. So it would make sense to do as many projects as possible and test which ones have the potential to go big, isn't it?
Obviously this doesn't apply to software that goes into medical equipment, planes etc that can harm people.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#44Many of the most intelligent and capable people I know suffer from impostor syndrome to some degree. It can vary from worrying that you might not be as good as your peers, to being afraid to release something because you're worried it's not perfect yet, to a paralyzing inability to start, because you're stuck in a mental loop overthinking dependencies and prerequisites. Smart people spend lots of time learning, think…
Definitely agree on that second one: “harhar, all perfectionists are making excuses for their lack of skill and keeping me from my brilliant work!!”
Not someone I’d want to work with, but I’m sure he’d think I’m too slow and stupid anyway :)
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#45Lately I've been doing tasks from easiest to hardest. I no longer seem like a perfectionist. Let me explain... 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…
I do this! Snowball method for time instead of money.
Momentum is easily one of the the most powerful forces in my life, both good and bad, so I try hard to keep it working in my favor.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#4699% of the perfectionists I have had the misfortune to work with are just slow or out of their depth and are using the term as an emotional crutch. How much nicer it is to tell yourself that you are a perfectionist than you are just not very good at whatever you are doing. The people that turn out near perfect work are usually the fastest and just get things done. It is a pity they are so rare.
99% of people who rant against perfectionism don't understand how wholly perfectionism takes over your thought process and that people who suffer from perfectionism are not characterized by "perfect" finished products, or even necessarily describing themselves as such. Rather, it can be a crippling subconscious mindset that inhibits productivity, creativity, and learning.
In other words, the "causes" you identify in your first sentence are actually the consequences of the affliction.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#4799% of the perfectionists I have had the misfortune to work with are just slow or out of their depth and are using the term as an emotional crutch. How much nicer it is to tell yourself that you are a perfectionist than you are just not very good at whatever you are doing. The people that turn out near perfect work are usually the fastest and just get things done. It is a pity they are so rare.
And 99% of the agile scrummasters are just selfishly barking up the chain and their koolaid-drinking devotees use the "methodology" to justify shipping barely funcrional shit all the while disguising patches and bug fixes as "incremental value add". But in all seriousness, I feel like it's a false dichotomy. You can be practical and still demand thoughtfulness and quality. It really kills me when people come to the c…
Of course - that is why those that turn out great work tend to be fast and just get things done.
If you have skill and understanding of your goals you know exactly how much effort is required for each task and you can balance the competing priorities well.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#48I'm really skeptical of this attitude. In a lot of fields I've seen people who commit themselves to "just getting it done." The result is that they do get a lot of work done: and it's bad, it's mediocre, it doesn't have value. On the other hand, one can easily think of creators who spent a long time on one work (maybe "too much" time), and the result was work of lasting value. Of course, this relates more to artistic…
If history has anything to teach us, it's that being prolific in creating work is more successful than being a perfectionist. Alexandre Dumas didn't know he was creating a what's now considered a literary masterpiece when he wrote The Three Musketeers. It was just another of the many, many stories he wrote.
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Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#4999% of the perfectionists I have had the misfortune to work with are just slow or out of their depth and are using the term as an emotional crutch. How much nicer it is to tell yourself that you are a perfectionist than you are just not very good at whatever you are doing. The people that turn out near perfect work are usually the fastest and just get things done. It is a pity they are so rare.
99% of people who rant against perfectionism don't understand how wholly perfectionism takes over your thought process and that people who suffer from perfectionism are not characterized by "perfect" finished products, or even necessarily describing themselves as such. Rather, it can be a crippling subconscious mindset that inhibits productivity, creativity, and learning. In other words, the "causes" you identify in…
It of course is always difficult to separate cause from effect. It can be difficult to know if perfectionism is driving poor performance or if perfectionism is an emotional crutch to cover for poor performance, but based on my personal experience the crutch hypothesis is the most parsimonious.
Re: Being a perfectionist is an obstacle and how to beat it
#50Can't really agree with most of that. I've found that the more experience I get, the more time I spend waiting for my brain to pattern match is way through problems; which might take several days. The trick is to be observant enough to notice when it gets stuck and take that as a cue that more empirical data is needed to get unstuck. As well as to stop pushing and wait for more pattern matching if the code starts drifting into la la land. Trusting the process, basically. I realize that might not work as well without 30 years of training. Which brings us to the problem with best practices in general; they are at best signs pointing in the right direction for someone at some point, but tend to be institutionalized as divine truth.