People who say perfectionism is bad usually suck at their craft

19 July 2021

personalperfectionismGTD

GTD(getting things done) quickly is their best quality. The "how" is a low priority. So are the quality and the originality. And that's not a bad thing. Honestly, I'm often jealous.

There are a few problems though.

Example 1. Starting a software project which is to be worked full time for e.g. a year or more. Putting this type of people at the beginning of the project is a recipe for disaster. In this situation, where they would fit is after the first half of the project. When most of the important architectural decisions have been done by guess who. The perfectionist. A.k.a. the architect. A.k.a. the person who is not as fast as the others but whose decisions are made to last.

Example 2. Most YouTubers. I'm willing to bet that 90% of YouTubers, if not more, live by the GTD mantra. They hate perfectionism but you can't say they don't produce. And produce they do. What is sad is that in order to get a pinch of value from them, you have to consume their whole freaking channels. And by the time you've done that you've already lost x10 that value. Compared to the perfectionist YouTuber who uploads once every so often where you pause every 10 seconds because your mind can't process all the goodness packed in such a short period of time leaving you in awe.

Then a perfectionist and a GTD person go to the interview.

"What have you been doing for the past..":

GTD: Well.. I managed to successfully produce over 30 videos, edit them and publish them on Youtube! And they are good!

The perfectionist: I tried to make a video about.. but it kind of sucks(actually thinking this) and it's far from done yet so I can't show much

Obviously, you'll get two significantly different impressions. One has published 30 videos, the other almost one. If you decide to consume their content though.. both make your head explode in different ways.