Tag: goal

Finding the balance between striving for perfection and getting things done

We should all try our best at whatever we do, but we need to realize that our best is not perfect, and will never be perfect, no matter how much time we spend on it. Instead, we should focus our time, energy, and money on a mix between creating the minimum viable product (MVP) as quickly as possible and making adjustments based on the results/data that comes in.

Just because we think something will go according to plan, doesn’t mean that it will. If we’re inexperienced, sometimes we just don’t know what we don’t know. And even when we are experienced, sometimes there are still unexpected surprises or we feel the butterfly effect from some other event outside of our control.

So, our goal should be to know what we’re aiming for (having an end result in mind), develop a plan to get there, and execute that plan as quickly as possible. Yes, you should check your work, you should look for errors and try to avoid pitfalls when you can, but if you wait for “perfect,” it will take you a year to do something you could have achieved in a month (and it still won’t be perfect).

Get moving. Get started. Don’t wait for perfect. Pay attention to the results. Modify your actions based on your new hypothesis. Repeat.

Timing is everything

Put a timeline on everything. When there is no time crunch, your effort and focus tends to dissipate. But if you are in a time crunch or have a deadline, you’ll get more done in less time. This is called Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s law says that work expands to fill the time available for completion. So, if you have a week to complete something, it you’ll usually take the full week to do it. But if you were only given three days to do it, you could do it in three days.

So, if you don’t have a timeline for when something needs to be achieved, you likely won’t focus on it enough to actually achieve it. This is why S.M.A.R.T. goals are timely. You need to have a time restriction to be your most productive.