I recently finished reading TGRRE - one chapter that really stuck in my mind was Chapter 9: "The 'Good Isn't Good Enough' Principle".
For those who haven't read it, from what I understand it is essentially saying that if you aim for your work to be at a "Good" level, then the output of your work is likely to be at a mediocre level.
However, if you aim for your work to be at a level of "Excellence", then your likely outcome will be a "Good" level.
The idea is to strive for a level above what you are actually looking to achieve.
While I like this concept and have absolutely integrated it into my work, there's a bit of a conflict in my head.
I'm a big fan of the "Ready, Fire, Aim" strategy. Take action now - act, assess and improve later.
This brings me to the dilemma - what is the ideal balance of action vs perfection?
Take a blog post for example.
At what point should you take action and post the blog post?
1. Right after writing the first draft
2. After some spelling corrections
3. Making the information more concise
4. Adding new images and points to your blog post
5. Getting your blog post to over 2,000 words
6...
7...
8... (you get the idea)
My thought process is if you focus too much on achieving a level of "Excellence" in your work (and I understand this is subjective, which complicates things even further) you risk wasting time over-perfecting something.
One analogy I've heard recently is if you spend 4 hours getting something from 0% to 95%, is it really worth spending another 4 hours getting it from 95% to 100%?
I'm not attacking MJ's principle here, I just thought this would make for an interesting discussion.
Where do you see the line between Perfection and Execution?
For those who haven't read it, from what I understand it is essentially saying that if you aim for your work to be at a "Good" level, then the output of your work is likely to be at a mediocre level.
However, if you aim for your work to be at a level of "Excellence", then your likely outcome will be a "Good" level.
The idea is to strive for a level above what you are actually looking to achieve.
While I like this concept and have absolutely integrated it into my work, there's a bit of a conflict in my head.
I'm a big fan of the "Ready, Fire, Aim" strategy. Take action now - act, assess and improve later.
This brings me to the dilemma - what is the ideal balance of action vs perfection?
Take a blog post for example.
At what point should you take action and post the blog post?
1. Right after writing the first draft
2. After some spelling corrections
3. Making the information more concise
4. Adding new images and points to your blog post
5. Getting your blog post to over 2,000 words
6...
7...
8... (you get the idea)
My thought process is if you focus too much on achieving a level of "Excellence" in your work (and I understand this is subjective, which complicates things even further) you risk wasting time over-perfecting something.
One analogy I've heard recently is if you spend 4 hours getting something from 0% to 95%, is it really worth spending another 4 hours getting it from 95% to 100%?
I'm not attacking MJ's principle here, I just thought this would make for an interesting discussion.
Where do you see the line between Perfection and Execution?
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