Good enough > perfect

Good enough is better than perfect.

Done! is great
Getting a task to done as quickly as possible with the minimum amount of effort is the objective. Getting it really done. Done so it doesn’t reappear as the same bit of work. Getting it off your lists and out of your mind. There’s a peace in that accomplishment. So why is it so hard to actually get there?

Fear and uncertainty drive you to perfection
Fear of failure, whatever “failure” means, and uncertainty about what is really required delay Done!. They disguise themselves as ‘perfect’. Perfect sounds good. It sounds safe. Good enough just means getting everything done to a level that meets the objective of the work. Perfect means meeting the work objectives and any arbitrary set of external standards. When stated that way, perfect seems wasteful and arbitrary, and it is… but that doesn’t stop us from striving for it or some level of it.

What is good enough?
Answering the question, “What is good enough?”, objectively is the challenge. This series of posts will lay out a few strategies to help you avoid perfectionism and get your tasks really done. Done!

Upcoming topics

• Define what Done! really means
• Your inner voice is not your friend
• Quickly assess the risk of not-doing things on the list
• Break-up the work
• Draft, review, and version whenever possible
• Get started now
• Accept imperfections
• Further reading
• My experience writing this series

Acknowledgments
I was inspired to write this series by Dustin M. Wax’s Getting to Good Enough post over at Lifehack.org. I also expect I’m subconsciously drawing on David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach.