Iteration beats perfectionism

This one will be short, as I already mentioned this several times. Any thing you do … you can do again. Anything you try … you can try again. (Of course, rare exceptions exist, but this is generally true.)

Perfectionism destroys this. Don’t try to do something perfect the first time. It will block you, freeze you, until you never do anything. As the saying goes:

Don’t worry, be crappy.

Once you have a first version, you can always turn it into a better second version!

But if you have nothing … well, you can’t improve nothing.

So, not only do you need to “fail big”, you also need to “fail faster” 😛

Iteration is the magic word. Do something. Look back at what you did, note what worked and what didn’t, then try again.

Once you let go of perfectionism, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can accomplish something. Really, the main time wasters for humans are doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism.

Let’s take books as an example. More often than not, I encounter people taking years to finish a book. It’s so normal that many won’t raise an eyebrow on that statement.

But any professional writer, who makes their living writnig books, knows this is a terrible red flag. A book is 80,000 words which you can make up any way you like. A first version can be written in a month, without the need to hurry.

Yes, that first draft will be crappy. It will contain many mistakes, both minor (spelling errors, sentences that don’t read well), and major (plot holes, contradictions, missing chapters).

But now you can spend another week improving that to a second draft. Iterate a few more times, and you have a fifth draft that is really polished and good. And all that within a few months.

The real time waster is perfectionism, and nothing else. In the time you wasted being cautious and having doubts, you could have just tried a handful of things and already have a first version.

Again, this is true for projects and tasks, but also for general things like taking care of your health.

Not sure how to improve your diet? Try something. Remove one thing you often eat. Or add a type of fruit. After a week or two, check if you feel better. Now try something else, based on that information.

And as always, other people will give you hell for this. “You want to improve your diet and started eating more bananas? That’s stupid.” People have opinions. And that’s what they are: opinions. Based on … well, nothing, 99% of the time.

Those who do are always better off than those who don’t. Get your information, experiment, try something, then iterate.