Done > Perfect

I often spend a lot of time thinking about doing things and not getting round to actually doing them. Some people chalk this up to procrastination, but I’d like to take an alternative perspective.

From a personal perspective, I fancy myself a perfectionist of sorts. If I’m going to complete a piece of work, I want it to be the best work that I’ve done to date.

The problem with this however, is that it puts me under a lot of pressure to produce great work. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but my response to this is to procrastinate.

Maybe I don’t have the best idea at the time, or something isn’t quite right and I don’t feel like I can do my best work at that particular moment in time, but I used to end up putting off the work until later.

The perfect time to do something is always now.

I’d spend ages waiting for that perfect burst of inspiration, or that perfect mood to get stuff done, because I was worried about making the work perfect.

The idea in itself, whilst sound, is ridiculous. Very rarely (if ever) is something done right the first time — it’s always a product of countless revision and iteration.

If you spend your time worrying about if something is perfect or not, you’ll think too much, putting off the actual work, and as a result ending up with a subpar piece of work.

The trick is to start at a high level. Just start, flesh out a basic concept, or an outline. Once you’ve got something down, it’s a lot easier to see where you can improve as opposed to playing a mental game of tennis with yourself.

At the end of the day, it’s better to have something done, than an idea that is perfect. Something tangible can be iterated on, whilst if it’s all in your head, there’s not much you can do.

So, avoid the stress. Just start. Now.