DONE Is Better Than Perfect (The '7 Out of 10' Rule)

[Stevie Drive]

Alright, let me ask you a question. How many times have you beaten yourself up because you think your effort wasn't good enough?

Many times? Well you're not alone.
I did a talk about this in front of a business class I was invited to speak before and I can assure you sooo many people suffer from this.

Back in the day, I used to suffer from perfectionism big time too.

It took me 6 hours to finish a 1,000-word article. A post like this used to be 1 to 2 hours' worth or writing. A book? At least a couple of months because I couldn't stand a rogue apostrophe or a misplaced comma.

But you know what? I found out that excellence doesn't work like that after being in business for over 10 years now.

Just take Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as an example.

In his letter to potential investors he wrote:

"Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook."

In other words, "Do the best you can, ship it and learn from it … fast!"

However, getting it done doesn't mean making crap. It just means giving everything you've got a deadline. That also means becoming open to feedback and learn from it.

I have a rule that I follow now. If it's "good enough", just release it. Meaning, it's like a 6 or 7 out of 10. Then, I'll get feedback and revise it until I make it a 10.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn said it the best: "If you are not embarrassed by the first verison of your product, you've launched too late!"

So the big take-away? Just start dammit!

 

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[Process]

Thanks this is an underrated post.

It reminds me of this experiment where they had two groups of students.

1. One group was to make 1 perfect piece of pottery
2. The other was to make as many pieces as possible

Guess which group ended up being really good at making pottery at the end of the semester?...

(the book was "Blackbox Thinking" if I recall correctly)

 

[Stevie Drive]

Thanks this is an underrated post.

It reminds me of this experiment where they had two groups of students.

1. One group was to make 1 perfect piece of pottery
2. The other was to make as many pieces as possible

Guess which group ended up being really good at making pottery at the end of the semester?...

(the book was "Blackbox Thinking" if I recall correctly)

Nice! I love this story. Absolutely, repetition is mother of a skill. If someone wants to get good at something, just have them do it 100 times. Whatever it is, they CANNOT not become world-class through all those repetitions.

 

[Philip Marlowe]

Ugh - it's like you're talking right to me. I suffer from this big time. Thanks for the reminder that perfection is the enemy of the good.

Edit: Perfection also causes a "traffic jam" for me. Instead of moving quality content out the door, my posts back-up and by the time I've "perfected" one post, I've lost my train of thought on the other. Get it done!

 

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[Stevie Drive]

Ugh - it's like you're talking right to me. I suffer from this big time. Thanks for the reminder that perfection is the enemy of the good.

You got it bro! Yes it took a while for me too to really not give a f*ck and start executing like a madman. Now I practice "MIA", "Massive IMPERFECT Action". Everyday!

 

[Limitless4Life]

One of the things my slowlane job preaches is ‘80 is the new 100’. It has helped me a lot with productivity.

 

[Process]

Nice! I love this story. Absolutely, repetition is mother of a skill. If someone wants to get good at something, just have them do it 100 times. Whatever it is, they CANNOT become world-class through all those repetitions.

I'm not sure we're completely on the same page, why cannot they become world class?

In the story the people who tried to make the perfect jar, ended up with one distorted jar.

The people who could experiment rapidly, learned how to mold the clay to their desire. The clay became an extension of their hands almost. Their final clay jar was actually very good.

How else would someone become world class?

 

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[Coalission]

Seth Godin had a good talk about exactly this called "Quieting the Lizard Brain":

 

[Stevie Drive]

One of the things my slowlane job preaches is ‘80 is the new 100’. It has helped me a lot with productivity.

Yeah I like that!

 

[Stevie Drive]

I'm not sure we're completely on the same page, why cannot they become world class?

In the story the people who tried to make the perfect jar, ended up with one distorted jar.

The people who could experiment rapidly, learned how to mold the clay to their desire. The clay became an extension of their hands almost. Their final clay jar was actually very good.

How else would someone become world class?

Haha that was a typo. I meant to say "They cannot NOT be world-class"

 

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[Stevie Drive]

Seth Godin had a good talk about exactly this called "Quieting the Lizard Brain":

Awesome share!

 

[Process]

Haha that was a typo. I meant to say "They cannot NOT be world-class"

Ok good haha, just making sure.

...because I am doing everything in my power to kill the idea that someone can be an expert by just reading books about something.

 

[jms0717]

Whoa. Big mindset shift. I'm a huge perfectionist. That's why I'm still working on my first (free...shouldn't have done that) website, and took 2 weeks to write and send my sales letters instead of 1 day. I'm working on it.

 

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[Judicious]

Thanks for the reminder. Sometimes I find myself spending more time making the lists of things I need to do than doing the things on my lists. Crazy, right? Progress leads to more progress.

 

[Stevie Drive]

Thanks for the reminder. Sometimes I find myself spending more time making the lists of things I need to do than doing the things on my lists. Crazy, right? Progress leads to more progress.

Yup! A great book to read on this topic is "Lean Startup" by Eric Ries. It goes into detail about taking fast action. A fantastic book!

 

[ALC]

Thanks for the reminder sir

 

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[Rawr]

Seth Godin had a good talk about exactly this called "Quieting the Lizard Brain":

that was insanely good.

 

[dgr]

Alright, let me ask you a question. How many times have you beaten yourself up because you think your effort wasn't good enough?

Many times? Well you're not alone.
I did a talk about this in front of a business class I was invited to speak before and I can assure you sooo many people suffer from this.

Back in the day, I used to suffer from perfectionism big time too.

It took me 6 hours to finish a 1,000-word article. A post like this used to be 1 to 2 hours' worth or writing. A book? At least a couple of months because I couldn't stand a rogue apostrophe or a misplaced comma.

But you know what? I found out that excellence doesn't work like that after being in business for over 10 years now.

Just take Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as an example.

In his letter to potential investors he wrote:

"Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook."

In other words, "Do the best you can, ship it and learn from it … fast!"

However, getting it done doesn't mean making crap. It just means giving everything you've got a deadline. That also means becoming open to feedback and learn from it.

I have a rule that I follow now. If it's "good enough", just release it. Meaning, it's like a 6 or 7 out of 10. Then, I'll get feedback and revise it until I make it a 10.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn said it the best: "If you are not embarrassed by the first verison of your product, you've launched too late!"

So the big take-away? Just start dammit!

It's really difficult to let go of perfectionism.

Usually when you are perfectionist you're identifying your work with your personal worthiness.

Nobody wants to be unworthy. So your work is never good enough.

But you cannot success at first attempt, ever. Feedback is what makes your work relevant and great. So...

In order to be able to let go of this need, but at the same time maintain your standards, I've found a solution. It works for me, at least.

Consider your work ALWAYS as a work in progress. As a beta version. When you launch, do it knowing that the only way to perfection is through the feedback.

Get every rejection and every feedback or criticism as something that is probably true from the perspective of the other person (or the market).

Be grateful for that. Consider it your mentor, your coach, giving you the awareness that you so hardly need.

Then keep working on it until perfection or success. Whatever comes first.

Usually success comes first. Perfection is almost impossible to achieve.

But sometimes comes failure after failure. That's great, you're learning anyway. Use it for your next project.

I've been in an exhibition in Vienna today. Rubens. Wonderful paintings. You know what? No one of those paintings was the result of a first try.

He made a lot of preliminar work.

He stole a lot from other artists. He copied a lot from himself. He repeated the same posture for a body in very different paintings. He copied from classical sculptures.

He transformed everything he saw and combined it into new paintings.

He took feedback from their clients and modify a lot of the details of his paintings.

He was a pro.

But no one of his paintings is perfect.

The F*cking Rubens. He was not perfect.

Why should we be?

Edit: changed "exposition" for "exhibition". It was a false friend. First iteration

 

[BossChickBiz]

Seth Godin had a good talk about exactly this called "Quieting the Lizard Brain":

This is what I've needed to hear my whole entire life. I should have been rich and retired already. Rep transferred.

 

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[Raoul Duke]

 

[Wolfman]

Alright, let me ask you a question. How many times have you beaten yourself up because you think your effort wasn't good enough?

Many times? Well you're not alone.
I did a talk about this in front of a business class I was invited to speak before and I can assure you sooo many people suffer from this.

Back in the day, I used to suffer from perfectionism big time too.

It took me 6 hours to finish a 1,000-word article. A post like this used to be 1 to 2 hours' worth or writing. A book? At least a couple of months because I couldn't stand a rogue apostrophe or a misplaced comma.

But you know what? I found out that excellence doesn't work like that after being in business for over 10 years now.

Just take Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as an example.

In his letter to potential investors he wrote:

"Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook."

In other words, "Do the best you can, ship it and learn from it … fast!"

However, getting it done doesn't mean making crap. It just means giving everything you've got a deadline. That also means becoming open to feedback and learn from it.

I have a rule that I follow now. If it's "good enough", just release it. Meaning, it's like a 6 or 7 out of 10. Then, I'll get feedback and revise it until I make it a 10.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn said it the best: "If you are not embarrassed by the first verison of your product, you've launched too late!"

So the big take-away? Just start dammit!

Hi Stevie, You sure got my attention. Everything you said makes sense and now I'm going to do it, not think any more about how to make it perfect. I'll have to thank. Greg

 

[HackVenture]

The bane of many entrepreneurs.

I used to suffer really badly from this until I started making extensive use of todo lists via Wunderlist.

Instead of subjectively considering whether something was "considered" done, I simply look at that task on Wunderlist and if it IS done, it's DONE, simple!

Now all you need to do is to define the task properly.

 

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