Rob Goodlatte

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Stop being a perfectionist—just throw it out there and see what happens. It’s simple advice, but something that I’ve been ignoring for too long. Not every blog post will be your opus, not every design will be your masterpiece. Stressing over every detail and clinging onto the project until it’s “perfect” only constructs a barrier in your creative process.

Moreover, the perfectionist’s creative process is so tiresome that he or she will lose motivation fast. If each blog post takes three hours to be written, formatted, and thought-out perfectly, you’ll publish less often and you’ll discard a lot of ideas that could’ve been great. This is the paradox of perfectionism: your best work is produced when you’re not striving towards perfection. Being a perfectionist is so de-motivating that you’ll wind up producing less and never create the masterpiece that realizes your full creative potential.

This is not to say you should lower your standards towards quality. Just lower your resistance towards putting your work out there, even if it’s not fully realized. To that end, try to remove other barriers towards creating. Figure out what part of your process takes too long and find a way to reduce that time or cut it entirely. Then you’ve got more time to spend on the essential elements of a project, and you’re not too worn out to continue onto the next project.

Thanks to Bryan Veloso for motivating me to write this post.

Photo by brentbat under Creative Commons

 

1. Colin Devroe via Pingback April 3rd at 3:35 pm

   Great advice indeed and something I’m continuing to think about with the various projects I have in the fire at the moment including my blog’s redesign that I only seem to get 20 minutes per day to take a look at.

2. Brian Artka April 3rd at 6:14 pm

   Great post Rob. This, along with busy client work, is another reason (I guess excuse at this point) I havent gotten any of my personal sites done. I always critique a personal design to death, and I never get to implement it. The motivation to do it slowly dwindles away as the time goes on; just as you have explained.

   Thanks for writing this, it may be the kick in the arse I need to get my personal projects done with no remorse.

3. Justin Blanton via Pingback April 4th at 4:08 am

   “I don’t remember Rob interviewing me for this piece, but, umm, he must have. If one thing — other than work — affects the rate at which I post here, post-process photos, etc., it’s the perfection-is-attainable pipe dream I’ve been holding on to since the day I was born; it can be overcoming.”

4. Step April 5th at 10:13 pm

   I got a special kick out of scrolling down and realizing that was the end of the article. That’s putting action to words, indeed.

   …

   And that’s all I have time to comment. Off to actually do something, no time to browse the archives here. Maybe I should add to my feedreader and check it out later…

5. Nick Sergeant April 7th at 7:16 am

   Man, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was just explaining this scenario to a colleague of mine after a project I was working on took just a bit too long to finish. Now I realize I’m not the only one, so I must not be crazy.

   Thanks for the insightful post!

6. Alex Saueressig April 7th at 4:43 pm

   Exactly!
   I realized some time ago that being perfectionist is the worst way to reach the perfection.
   Nice post!

7. MaSaMi April 9th at 6:41 am

   Totally agree with this.

8. Ramy May 24th at 10:13 pm

   Wow. This blog post is a masterpiece ! I totally am that perfectionnist and it is clearly affecting my grades at school and the quality of my blog. Thanks a lot Rob for this reflexion. “Just throw it out there and see what happens”. Wow. I’m flabergasted ! haha!

9. Wadworth Waxstrong June 15th at 12:28 pm

   I agree with what you said. In fact, I’m guilty of it (perhaps, victim of it). I was trying to do something in my life for almost 3 years now (of which I’m not confiding here, LOL) and up until now I was never able to accomplish it.

   After coming across your post I hope I’ll stop being perfectionist and finish that darn thing I was talking about.

10. Eugene July 15th at 2:22 pm

    I agree with your post for the most part. The trouble with this statement “Just lower your resistance towards putting your work out there, even if it’s not fully realized” is that some of your posts may become boring, trite, or mediocre, and you might lose audience. I am not a perfectionist in my posts, but I do strive for overall excellence. However, it is tough at times to find the happy medium between “excellence” and “regularity of posting.”

11. Charles M. February 12th at 6:13 am

    When you’re right, you’re right. I think the more you open yourself to the evolution of everything, the more you understand and are ok with an earlier release, keeping in mind you can immediately begin a list of revisions to make. So goal 1 of completion of a stage is done, and goal 2 of perfection remains in the works. Perfection is beautiful, but not everything beautiful is perfect.

 

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