Done is NOT better than perfect.

Sometimes it’s not even better than not done.

Recently I found myself in the middle of a completionist nightmare show. Their mantra? “Done is better than perfect”. It launches at you at all the meetups, all the pitches and all the case studies of failures.

While I understand the reasoning behind it, I’ll have to disagree. Sorry.

But before we dive into the specifics let’s define our terms.

Bottom of the iPhone 6 and the bottom of a corresponding Samsung phone of that era. It’s easier to “get it done” placing the components as they fit. It’s a bit harder to align them symmetricaly.

Perfect is an unachievable state.

Perfection is naturally impossible. You can try to get close to perfect, but it’s all a matter of the scale you use.

Precision is considered perfection, but you can only get as precise as the tools, skill and “physics” allow you. You’ll never be precise down to an atomic level (or further) so you’ll never be objectively perfect.

Ergo Perfect is simply the label on the right side of the scale. It’s infinity that we all struggle to reach, but never ultimately do.