Over-perfection creates over-thinking and over-thinking kills your best ideas. Here is what you can do…
Example 1. You start writing a blog. Writes the first paragraph. You want every word to be very precise and well crafted. You pay attention to the grammar & punctuation. Read the paragraph 8-10 times and then move onto the next one. You follow the same process but this time your patience and interest start running out slowly. Some doubts start peeping into your mind…
- Will people really like this?
- Is it really worth writing a blog on this topic?
- Should I wait and do some more research?
The cloud becomes darker and you give up writing further.
Example 2. You manage somehow to complete your POC design before the given deadline, but when it comes to your own study assignment – you spend a lot of time making the first module pixel-perfect. Could complete the one or two modules of the page and then the design assignment goes on hold forever!
Example 3. You decided to go to gym once you are completely done with your current task that is stuck in your mind. And you have not started your gym for years due to back-to-back tasks!
What is over-perfectionism?
Over-perfectionism is our own satisfaction level about a particular task that never/hardly gets achieved.
Seeking for over-perfection is always harmful. Over-perfection creates over-thinking and over-thinking makes you keep your work postponing. You often end up spending a lot of time on the task than required. Got stuck in the secondary things that are not required at the current phase. And one fine morning, you find no interest in it. You wrap up your program with no output despite being very much closer to accomplishment.
Why only perfection? Everything that ‘overs’ the limit starts showing the negative side of it. A proper dose of medicine will cure you from the illness but overdose of the same will work as poison for your body. There can be hundreds of examples but for now let’s get back to the track.
Over-perfectionism creates overthinking and overthinking kills your best ideas!
Am I an over-perfectionist?
Over-perfectionism is a psychological state and not a sign of a healthy mind. An over-perfectionist…
- always doubtful about his capabilities.
- cannot multitask as he never moves to the next task until finishes the current ones ‘perfectly’ and completely according to him.
- always leaves in a guilt about the completed tasks although everything went well
- is lacking in taking decisions.
- never celebrates his achievements. (What if something goes wrong somewhere, people will laugh at me for celebrating early)
- often anxious. Spoils his weekends for the meetings/ events happening next week.
Design is a very subjective field where you don’t have any units to measure the excellence of your design. It’s just a matter of probability whether someone likes it or not. In such cases, defining accuracy becomes a challenge. One person likes your design a lot and the other person has some different opinion. You don’t know where to stop. You go on making the improvements and still don’t find the level where you can say ‘yes, this is it!’. This is very common in our field, every designer sometimes comes across this situation.
How to overcome the over-perfectionism
- Accept the fact: you are humans not machines. You CAN make mistakes and your mistakes are not the 8th wonder of the world!
- Lay your full plan out first and then keep making the improvements from all the sides. You will see your idea taking shape slowly but proportionately.
- Do not keep the plan open ended. Set the deadlines and execute the plan in whatever stage. (I would not have been able to release this article if I didn’t set the same.) You can break your goal down into smaller chunks.
- Be answerable. Spread the plan within your circle. The peer pressure will keep you motivated. Inform your critics, their criticism will help you be charged for your goal 😀
- Don’t worry about the results. Just give your best to your work. Also, stop thinking guilty about the plan you have already executed. Move on to the next.
- Be vigilant with yourself. Do some yoga, meditation. These will keep you calm and energized.
You are humans and your mistakes are not the 8th wonder of the world!
This article is purely based on my experience and experiments, I didn’t do any Google on it. You may find some research already done on this with some other terminology, but this is what I did to ‘overcome’ my over-perfectionism 😀
So? How many unexecuted ideas do you have yet?
