Forget Pursuing Perfection, 70% IS Perfect

If you’re anything like me, you too encounter perfectionism.

I think perfectionism is in fact the fear of not being good enough. And maybe it’s the reason why you’re not propelling forward as fast as you might wish.

There was once held a competition between two groups of photographers.

Both groups had the same goal: capturing the best photo within 7 days. However, they were required to have two separate strategies. Group one was limited to a maximum of 10 photos, while group two had the freedom to take as many pictures as they wanted to.

Naturally, group one was cautious with their fingers. They used hours perfecting the scene and the angle of each photo. Group two — in contrast — clicked away, capturing pictures of every little thing that might have an interesting angle.

At the end of the week, a small panel of experts had to find the 3 best pictures.

It took some time, as group two had thousands of photos.

Finally, they concluded that group two had captured all the top 3 best pictures. Despite the group having hundreds of poor pictures, they also produced the best ones, surpassing the efforts of group one in their pursuit of perfection.

The 70% Rule

This story exemplifies how perfectionism leads to inferior results.

Translating this to writing — or other aspects of life — goes to show that enough quantity ultimately leads to quality. Though it’s not solely about quantity. You don’t want to create a lot, just to create a lot of junk.

This is where the 70% rule steps in.

The 70% rule suggests that once you’ve completed a task with 70% of your capacity to achieve perfection, then you should move on to the next task. This way you make sure not to create shit, but also prevent the pitfalls of perfectionism.

You’ll create more content, leading to better results.

Of course, it’s a bit more nuanced than so. For a very important task, you’ll maybe want to go to 80% or 90%. But still, keep in mind the downsides of persistently pursuing perfection.

Is it 70%? Great! Now, proceed to the next task.

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Let me know how you avoid pursuing perfectionism!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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