The pursuit of perfectionism can hinder progress and prevent us from achieving excellence. Do you consider yourself to be a perfectionist, and if so, can you share an experience where your own quest for perfection held you back from success? How did you eventually overcome it?
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I can share an ongoing perfectionistic type condition that I have, where anything I work for myself as I client, I am unable to complete or conclude it, as I always find something that I don't like about what I've done, especially when I come back to a project after a few days.
An example would be my personal website, that never actually launched because I always found something visual to focus on or functional, but never started focusing on what matters, like the actual content.
Nowadays , I believe I got a bit better at it since I started to make priorities for projects, and working on tasks I already defined a while ago, so usually I am not distracted by moments of inspiration (any inspiration or ideas I get, I just add to the pile of tasks), although its still not as good as it can be.
Best!
I have a similar behavior, can pass hours with a problem trying resolve. Ultimately complicate my life and work.
WE ARE OVERPRODUCTIVE!
Long Working Hours Make Us Less Productive but Also Less Costly
Yea exactly, its not easy to balance it out, its not easy being both the client and the developer in a sense :D
To a point, yes. I’ve learned to let things go, but I’ll still chase minute details until I realize I’m well past the point of diminishing returns. Usually it’s that “I’ve moved that component 3 pixels in all directions for the past half hour…maybe I should stop here and call it good”… 😂
I've been there while working as a designer, you create something then you start rearranging stuff and moving your head left and right to see if it looks good or not, and in the end you don't really know if its good anymore as you get lost in the details.
100% this. “Should those components have that much space between them? Should that image have 8px padding instead of 5?” And on and on…
I am a "diagnosed perfectionist" and I only really understood what perfectionism is after I did therapy. I used to think that perfectionists would always output work that is very close to perfection, and that was the measure. But the output is irrelevant for the condition of perfectionism, what really makes you a perfectionist is not your work being perfect but actually you being very harsh on yourself and never feeling satisfied with what you produce (or like@dsaga said, you see what you wrote a couple days ago and you hate it, even though you were initially fine with it).
I believe that the only way to overcome it is making peace with the fact that your work won't be perfect, and that there is always a chance to make it better later. If you believe that everything is always a WIP, it's easier to deal with the feeling that it's not good enough.
For me, perfectionism didn't present itself the same way as for other people, because I am also anxious, so I need to get something out, and I feel unable to wait until it's perfect. If it takes too long, I lose interest. So I need to get something out that I can improve later. That's just how it works for me!
Back in the day I also had anxiety a bit, still have some traces, but yea requires a change of mindset!
I'm not inherently a perfectionist in programming, but for UI/UX design, I certainly am. I struggle to make a simple design without feeling the need to go back and correct every little thing that isn't absolutely perfect, which ends up making the design look much worse.
I think I just need a bit more practice though. I only create UIs every 4 or 5 months (at best), which isn't great for my confidence or skills.
The real question is, what does perfection even mean? I consider myself a perfectionist. But do I make perfect stuff? Not at all. So I think you can be a perfectionist but not do perfect stuff, because perfection does not really exist or is relative and subjective in many cases. What's perfection for me might not be perfect for you.
So yeah, I've no clue what I'm talking about. But thats my take
From my perspective, I see perfectionism as a condition or trait where a person keeps working on something with the intention of creating something, but is unable to complete and move forward but is stuck in making changes that are not really planed... so it ends up being an unproductive effort.
I'm not a perfectionist, but I would say that I have high expectations for myself. One of the reasons I like programming is because it keeps me curious (which I think becomes harder after you become an adult). Now that I made the decision to keep learning I will make mistakes every day. This usually makes me uncomfortable, but I know you have to mess up to learn. There's a lot of societal pressure to be "perfect" or "the best" but sometimes you just need to get an idea or a project out there and see that happens.
I am perfectionistic and idealistic, i don't know why?
I always try to be or come close, in my opinion it's difficult to be because it can make you a little crazy but the end it's rewarding!