Better than perfect?

There's a shortage of done in this world. These days everyone's a perfectionist. (I can say this, because like most creative types, I've been a perfectionist.) And as is the credo for any perfectionist, "A job worth doing is worth doing right." 

But throwing around words like done and right and finished is all so counterproductive much of the time. I mean, what is right anyways? What's the measure? After all, who defines done or finished more than you? And even if you can irk out in plain English a reasonable set of criteria for what done versus finished means to you, who's to say it would be worth the time doing? 

I use this to make most of my work/life decisions.

So let's take a look, shall we -- at the concept of done and the concept of finished. For the purposes of this analysis, let's define finished in the eyes of a perfectionist, a.k.a., former me. (All you other perfectionists out there, you know who you are!)

First, a disclaimer: When we talk done and finished, we're generally applying these concepts to tasks which have no clear, definable states. That is, done has no concrete measure. So for instance, it's not just the simple case of taking math problem x + y = z and solving for y... unless in solving for y, you quantify x as an representation of your time's innate value versus y as a subjective definition of quality. (I'm sure someone has and will try this.)

Thanks, nerd.

But in general what we're talking about here are those tasks by which you and only you are the first line of audit in defining doneness. (Your boss/teacher/client/whatever is the next line of audit.)

Now that that's out of the way, recognize that pretty much anyone and everyone will face meet this challenge head-on at one time or another, particularly those in creative fields, like art or music or journalism, etc., and they'll probably meet it daily. When enough is enough?  What looks or sounds best? How do I know what people will like? These are all questions you'll find yourself asking over and over. In fact, if you've never felt the joy of this uncertainty and feel like facing this conundrum head-on, give writing a poem a try. Go on. I'll wait.

If you found yourself staring blankly at the computer screen
for three minutes or making this face, you weren't alone.

Now, the key. The magnificent thing and horrifying thing about all of the above questions on doneness and rightness and goodness and wrongness is this: None of these questions actually has an answer -- well, none beyond the answer you give, that is. See, you could probably go on writing and rewriting and reading and rereading that poem-we're-gonna-pretend-you-wrote-up-above forever and still not be satisfied. But if you don't find a way to evoke that satisfaction -- to be DONE -- when will you ever write the NEXT poem? ...Or send off the NEXT report? Or publish your NEXT novel? (::Nudge, nudge, hint, hint, wink, wink::)

Done is an agent of progress.

As a recovering perfectionist, I can tell you that throughout my life I've been concerned with finished over done. In my writing, finished has involved the arduous cycle of reading and editing and reading and editing. If I had to annotate it, it would be  something like: Write it --> Read it --> Edit it --> Re-read it --> Re-edit it --> Ask for feedback --> Re-read it --> Edit it --> Re-read it --> As for more feedback --> Re-read it --> TRASH IT --> Rewrite it

I'm not even going to mention what this does for your time management, much less your sanity. But this is why becoming comfortable with being done is so important. There's a magnificent commentary on The Cult of Done here. Read it, print it, tape it to your bathroom mirror. But most importantly, live it. Perfect is okay. But done is better.

Way better.

No one should know your own abilities better than you, so just ask yourself for any task, is the time invested worth the time lost? Because when you get down to it, perfection is all just someone's opinion anyways, something impossible to objectively quantify. And besides, do you really want to spend time trying to define the impossible when you have so much to get done? ~Tet