Perfectionism Might Have Killed Your Productivity.

When Steve Jobs was about to launch his first computer, which for context was revolutionary and made every other ‘modernized’ computer for the time look like a toy; he and some of his staff insisted that they paint the inside of the P.C*(personal computer) black too despite the extra costs. Sure, it might look more seamless when manufacturing the product they both were definitely knowledgeable enough to realize that pretty much no one would look at the insides that often, much less care about how it looks on the inside which is quite literally invisible. This is probably the most perfect definition of perfectionism, and while seemingly since most successful people do have this trait, logically every piece of work you put out will be refined and quality, correct? Well:

Have you ever been at an interview and been asked “what are your weaknesses?”. It was shown that an unreasonable amount of candidates stated the classic “I have no weaknesses” or “I work too hard”, however a sizable chunk also stated “I am a perfectionist”. While this may seem like a brilliant answer, as we generally coincide ‘good’ and ‘perfect’ together, the truth is that it really is a major weakness; and here’s why:

Often, when we finally sit down to at last open that dream business, start that YouTube channel, or finally finish up that essay(of course after using my previous tips to overcome procrastination;)), perfectionism is often the reason that we may never end up finishing or handing in any work at all. While yes, we should not submit lacking work, the problem with perfectionism is that whatever the scenario is, we may not get to next step itself in an attempt to constantly better the work already done. This can be a problem, as sure better vocabulary and sentence structure in that one paragraph might help, often it is better to just finish off the work if everything is up to a reasonable standard and only then look back and check, not spending unnecessary time correcting minute details. This way you will have at least made 1 video or submitted your essay on time, rather than not doing it at all.

Furthermore, in order to take up even lesser time and still put up the same amount of work, we can make use Parkinson’s law. This law states that “work expands with the time available for its completion”. If we set deadlines rather than mindlessly working as hard and long as we can, often you’d be surprised to see that we actually are taking up significantly lesser time than expected to complete tasks. Setting these deadlines well before a task is due not only relives stress but also makes us less likely to put the task off and also makes us more productive and puts us in a hyper-focused mode.

In conclusion, I would like to re-iterate that the reason I stopped writing for extremely long was obviously perfectionism, and now I am here I hope you don’t make the same mistake.

Follow along for 5 productivity hacks as I try and keep it as readable, entertaining, and efficient as possible!