Managing Your Perfectionism
“Perfect is the enemy of good” — (which isn’t a direct translation) comes from the Dictionnaire philosophique published in 1770 but as has also been referenced by the likes of Voltaire, Confucius, Aristotle.
Are you a perfectionist? Me too, especially when it comes to design. A good portion of creatives are perfectionists. It comes with the territory of creating something artistic. After all, nine times out of ten, your creation feels like an extension or representation of yourself.
Don’t be fooled, perfectionism is another form of procrastination because it’s just keeping you from finishing a project. When you’re on the job, you can’t afford to not finish things or push out deadlines. You have to deliver.
Done is better than perfect because if you never finish then it’s as if you did nothing at all. To beat perfectionism, you have to set boundaries for yourself in order to stay on track. And there are plenty of things you can try in order to cease your perfectionism from impeding on your progress.
01 — Managing your perfectionism by limiting your software.
Have you tried combating your perfectionism by limiting the caliber of tools you’re using?
In the design community, there are the “industry standard” tools that everyone uses (*cough cough* Adobe). These tools became industry standard because they are able to do practically anything you want which has its pros and its cons.
I’m not knocking using the big guns when it comes to design work but there are times when those tools end up getting in the way. Basically because they give you the power and the excuse to tweak your designs into oblivion.
A way that I combat this is by using less powerful tools, such as Canva, for certain projects or tasks. In no way is Canva a rudimentary tool, far from it actually. But it doesn’t have the plethora of tools that allow for “infinite” creativity. Its creativity within the bounds of the software capabilities.
Basically it doesn’t do everything, but it does enough. And often, enough is all you need.
02 — Managing your perfectionism by constraining your time.
Time is a cruel mistress when it comes to design. It’s just as easy to manage your time as it is to completely lose control of it.
Often times, deadlines are loose meaning that “it doesn’t matter when you work, as long as the work gets done by [INSERT DATE HERE].” This is a problematic statement for people who procrastinate but it’s just as much of a problem for perfectionists as well. And it’s a problem for the exact same reason: You have plenty of time.
Even though you’re expected work up until your deadlines may be lax, you can’t be especially if you struggle with perfectionism. You have to manage your time for yourself by creating milestones in order to keep yourself in check and to propel yourself through your process.
Set up hard-stop times where you give yourself X amount of time to do Y task. Use these milestones to prevent your perfectionist self the leeway to run rampant. Once your allotted time is up, pencils down, you’re done. As hard as it may be, you have to walk away.
03 — Managing your perfectionism by getting out of your own way.
The more you overthink, the more your perfectionistic tendencies surge which, in turn, produces a massive black hole that sucks up all of your time. It’s a vicious cycle where both ends perpetually feed each other and cause you to block yourself from any real progress.
“So, you know, just don’t overthink it, right? “ One of the most over-simplified pieces of advice ever, however it does hold weight. This can be a hard thing to curb but it’s easier if you don’t approach it by trying not to do something, rather replacing it with something else.
So, instead of trying not to overthink, focus on following your creative instincts — you’ll end up being quicker and more decisive. You may also find that your work ends up feeling and looking more authentic to what you intended because you’re not over processing it.
Stop thinking and just act. You know what you’re doing so stop second-guessing yourself.
Perfectionism doesn’t only impact your professional life.
Perfectionism impacts your personal life too. Just because something isn’t a professional project doesn’t mean that you should let your perfectionism run rampant.
I get it, it’s a personal project so you want to get it just right and, since there aren’t any deadlines, you can tweak things until your heart’s content. Sure there may not be actual deadlines for your project but I bet that there are people counting on it to get done.
You may be helping someone with a project or making a person a present, both of those things have to be done at a certain point. What if it’s a passion project for yourself, though? Then there isn’t a real deadline is there?
No there isn’t per se but you need to know when a project is done because if you don’t then your work will perpetually sit in project limbo. You have to stop over analyzing your work. I know that’s a big ask but you have to put the stamp of completion on your work at some point.
Just remember that nothing in this world is perfect and you can’t expect that your work will be either.
Your perfectionism may be a coping mechanism for anxiety.
Like a lot of creatives, you may have a general anxiety around peoples’ judgement of your work. There are many ways people cope with this anxiety — one of which being you becoming a perfectionist about your work.
Constantly worrying about how your work is going to be received by people can drive you into pushing your work until it’s “perfect.” All of the advice around how to curb this reaction is riddled with clichés but clichés are clichés for a reason. The reality is that just because you’re putting your work under a microscope doesn’t mean that anyone else is.
That’s a big thing to remember when trying to prevent yourself from falling into this coping mechanism. NO ONE expects you to be perfect and, to be blunt, no one is paying that much attention to what you’re doing in the first place. All of that pressure that you’re feeling is fabricated by you and all it’s doing is keeping you from finishing and releasing your work.
The only person who’s expecting perfection from you is you. And you have to learn how to let it go.
Just because you’re being productive doesn’t mean you aren’t procrastinating.
As much as it may seem like the antithesis, perfectionism is another form of procrastination. Even though you’re actually working on the thing that you’re supposed to, by trying to making it perfect, you’re keeping yourself from finishing it. Looking at your perfectionism through that lens, it makes it easier to see it for what it really is — as a bad habit that needs to be curbed.
You may be consciously or subconsciously doing this but every time you start tweaking, you’re pushing off completing your project. And at the end of the day there isn’t a difference between working on your project and not working on your project if you never finish either way.
See perfectionism for what it is and stop procrastinating.
Your work will never be perfect so don’t expect it to be.
If you’re a perfectionist, no matter how much you tweak it will never be 100% right, I promise you.
With all of the negatives I’ve brought up earlier you may think that the solution is to “just stop being a perfectionist.” It’s not. The solution is to stop being out of control.
It’s not about curbing it entirely. It’s about understanding it and controlling it. With all of the downsides of letting your perfectionism run rampant there are upsides as well.
It makes your super detail-oriented, willing to put the work in in order to accomplish your goals and unrelenting on achieving your vision. All of which are good traits when used sparingly.
