Perfectionism
"Perfect is the enemy of good" - while it may seem like a great idea that everything has to be perfect, most of the time only about 20% of things have to be perfect. Trying to make everything perfect not only wastes your time but also causes frustration when others make things in such a way.
What to do about it?
Create two buckets of tasks:
- Things that should be perfect, and put 20% of items there that should really be perfect.
- Things that should be good, and put the remaining 80% of items.
Rarely every single thing has to be perfect and this way it is clear where you cannot compromise on quality and where you can.
One of my clients - an engineering manager at a startup - wanted to do everything by themselves because there were few people that could help them and they felt like they were the ones that could do it best.
This led them to burn out but unable to let go of anything they did because only they could make it work.
Disclaimer:, this isn't a success case study. No matter how much insight and hope they got during our coaching sessions, they were unable to put it into action in the startup environment they were in.
I'm putting this story here to illustrate that you may do your best but sometimes changing the environment is the only option that can make a difference.
