Don’t let perfectionism to hold you back.

Vitaly Platonov
Nov 4 · 2 min read

It’s always a trade-off. You can get something just about right and go with it. Or try to polish and make it as good as possible (and probably never ship it).

Perfection gets in a way and gives you reasons to (procrastinate) delay the acting part. It’s always easier to find where something just isn’t good enough.

Though you may find yourself thinking — am I a madman for taking a leap now, not being quite ready, or am I just overwhelmed?

I look back I can see my most important achievements were initiated (and eventually done) when I was barely ready. My reasoning was that if I go now and I fail I’ll quickly learn from a real situation. Rather than trying to make up every possible scenario and try to prepare for all of them. But the last is for the perfect world. Everyone knows that it’s impossible to be ready for everything.

Actually I never felt comfortable doing something now and here. It always feels like you just need a little bit more time even just to get used to the idea of ever doing something new. And a thought of doing it, somewhere in the future but not now, gives comfort. The thing is the more you wait or even prepare — the less your chances to ever do it. Simply because you never get in touch with reality and just think up, mostly, an imaginary situation.

Don’t take these words too literally as always there is a place for exceptions. But the main theme is that you should try now with a minimal set of skills and preparation possible. Then iterate after you got some kind of feedback. Basically have a feedback loop and figure it out as you go.

Here a trick of overcoming perfection — make it an experiment. It’s a mental trick. Nothing really changes process-wise, but you’re now more ok with a thought of this not turning out to be a success.

Another thing is that in the process of doing you get more and more experienced. Over time you can’t help but begin to do it better and better.

And yeah, this text isn’t nearly excellent. It has some other ideas not developed, vague structure and so on. But without going and publishing now, a somewhat ready version of the text, — it may never see the light.

Vitaly Platonov

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