Perfection Is Costly

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend who’s been working on launching a website for what seems like forever. We’ve talked numerous times about the site and he has serious ambitions for what he’ll be able to achieve with the site. In fact, we’ve talked about it so many times over the past couple of years that I’m constantly asking him exactly when the site will be launched. Every time we talk his answer to that question is essentially the same. It’ll be launched once he can get just one or two more features exactly how he wants them. His idea is a wonderful one and I truly support what he wants to do but I also do believe that his insistence that every aspect of the site work perfectly as he envisions it is severely hurting his chances of ever getting the venture off the ground. With each feature added there are always multiple complications, many issues to be resolved, and since he’s working with outside help to build the site this often means months of additional effort. As a result, his idea remains just an idea and he’s not able to get the valuable feedback that he would gain if the idea was already unveiled to the world. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to do something absolutely perfectly, and as a result it seemed to take forever to complete? I know I have. I also learned long ago that the following axiom is quite true. Perfect is the enemy of good. Not that it’s bad to try to do something perfect, or at least as perfect as it can be. Perfectionists are often people who are recognized as people who are great at what they do. Just as often though perfectionists are known as people who are difficult to work with and unable to meet reasonable deadlines due to their commitment to perfection. There truly is a fine line between a genius and a lunatic! I don’t know where that line is but I’ve come to realize that the drive to be perfect is sometimes a form of resistance that does more harm than good. While it’s absolutely true that there are times when you need to be perfect, such as when you’re designing a ship for space travel or performing a heart transplant, there are many times when good is just fine. What I’ve discovered is that seeking perfection is quite a costly endeavor. It’s an endeavor that should be undertaken only when the risks of not being perfect are extremely high.

Technology companies, which just happen to be some of the most valuable companies in the planet these days, are masters of good over perfect. Microsoft has released at least ten versions of Windows and Apple has released at least twelve versions of the iPhone at the time of this writing. Each time they release a new version it includes fixes and new features because they’ve yet to release a perfect version of those products. In fact, if you compare the current versions of those products to the earliest versions you might not even rate those first versions as good. Yet Microsoft and Apple released the products and those companies are still more valuable than they’ve ever been. A famous quote that’s been attributed to Apple founder Steve Jobs is, “Artists ship.” I take that statement to mean that a true artist isn’t afraid to put work out into the world…even though it may not be a perfect work either in the eyes of the artist, or in the eyes of the artist’s followers, at the time.

From a young age we’re taught that perfection is the ultimate goal by what we experience in school. The straight A student is considered to be the best student and the one with the most future potential. In reality if you look at people who are successful and happy later in life you’ll find that people fit a variety of profiles as students when they were younger. Not that getting straight A’s is necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not ideal if the pursuit of it challenges your sanity! I tell my kids it’s okay to get B’s and C’s although the occasional A would be nice. The important thing to me is that they are enjoying the process of learning and are developing mental maturity. With that said, I recall a quote from the great business philosopher Jim Rohn who said, “Don’t be lazy in learning.” While I think it’s important to not insist on perfection it’s equally important to make an effort and do quality work wherever possible. Discipline is the character trait that allows us to put fences around our efforts so as to stave off the drive for perfection on one hand and the pull of laziness on the other hand. Discipline affords us the ability to complete tasks well and submit them for consideration by the world, knowing that we have the option to iterate and improve on the work later on.

I admit to struggling with the drive for perfection, especially when it comes to writing. Ideas for posts pop into my head and sometimes it takes me weeks to actually form what I first considered to be a good idea into a draft of a post. Then it may take me days, or even weeks, for that draft to turn into something I want to publish. I think it’s better for a writer to publish more rather than less so I am constantly reminding myself that it’s more important to publish an unfinished idea that I think is important than to not publish the idea at all. Here’s the reality of the situation though. No idea is ever finished and complete to perfection! Ideas can always be improved and expanded upon, just like the Windows software and the iPhone are always being improved and expanded upon. Do you think that Microsoft and Apple will ever say, “These are perfect so we’re done updating.” I don’t! Take heed of their example. 

Get to working on the things you’ve been putting off. Start things. Release them to the world and improve on them incrementally. Understand that you’ll never truly be done, and that’s okay. Make starting and finishing things in a quality way a habit like brushing your teeth and turning off the lights at bedtime. This approach will avoid the dire costs of insisting on perfection and yield many dividends during the journey that is your life.