Perfection is Procrastination

Heard something the other day that really stuck with me, especially when it comes to writing code: The pursuit of perfection is procrastination.

That floored me. I'm generally not a procrastinator, but earlier in my career I definitely made the mistake of wanting my work to be perfect.

How many times had 3 hours just slipped by trying to get something "just right" when it was "good enough" all along?

Working software always beats beautiful software that is incomplete. The pursuit of perfection delays your MVP, delays customer feedback, and delays realizing the thing you tortured yourself to get right is now obsolete.

I recently posted about my brother always saying to "sign your work with excellence," and I think that's an entirely different pursuit.

Excellence is a measure, not an ideal, focused on outcomes, the customer, and feedback. Excellence is how you respond to knowing perfection is impossible.

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