Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly
Anything worth doing is worth doing well
This is a saying that I feel has plagued society, specifically those in academia, for far too long. It seems to assume that if you can’t do it well it isn’t worth doing at all — which isn’t true.
This type of thinking is a disease that infects people and kills both their spirit and their productivity.
The quote should say:
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Because the things that make the most difference aren’t usually the things you spend hours procrastinating and stressing over. It’s the extra five minutes you spent clumsily learning how to pronounce a new word, the hour you spent on that essay in between jobs, the extra test prep you squeezed in while stuck in traffic.
When you care about something, the only thing that matters is that you do it. It doesn’t matter if you can’t spend hours making it perfect; if you start you’re miles ahead of anyone who didn’t start because they “didn’t have time.”
But if you’ve ever heard this quote and taken it to heart, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re a perfectionist — someone who has a difficult time letting projects go before they feel the project is perfect.
