Perfection is the Enemy of Great Writing
In the eighteenth century, the French philosopher, Voltaire wrote that: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” At least that is how it is most commonly cited in English. Lacking French language skills and a time machine, I can’t ask him exactly what he meant, but I see the challenges of perfectionism as follows.
- We can’t take the first step because we fear it won’t be good enough.
- We can’t make a decision because we fear it might be wrong.
- We spend too long planning then run out of time.
Perfection isn’t really the enemy though. Procrastination is the enemy, but the pursuit of perfection often leads to procrastination.
I wasn’t happy with any of the themes I’d come up with for a wedding speech I had to write recently. My thoughtful office buddy, sick of my procrastination remarked: “You may as well get on with it; better to elect to do a half-assed job now, than to leave it ‘till the last minute and have no choice.” Spurred into action I went with one of the themes I had. As I wrote, the theme expanded and morphed. A few hours later I was very proud of what I’d written.
In this video the comic genius, John Cleese, recounts losing a script he had written. Unable to find it, he wrote it again as best he could recall it. Later, on finding the original script, he discovered that the rewrite, which had taken much less time, was actually better than the original. Sometimes you just need to start again. Once the creative thinking is done you can rewrite an article very quickly.
James Dyson, threw away over 5,000 failed prototypes in the process of inventing his hugely successful bagless vacuum cleaner. You shouldn’t need to throw away 5,000 drafts of your next article, but if you write it and it’s not good enough, don’t fret. Just write it again, better. And remember, deleting is free. In my first iteration I try to write too much. That way I can weed out the weaker content in the following iteration.
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