When Good Enough is Better Than Perfect

The case for a maxim that fosters productivity, sanity and outright enjoyment of life

My late father worked as hard as anyone I know throughout his 85 years on this planet. As a small-business owner, self-taught engineer and hands-on builder of his own manufacturing equipment, he put in long hours and worked weekends when needed, while somehow spending a crazy amount of time racing cars, fishing, water skiing, camping, watching sports, fixing things around the house or just goofing off with his family.

How did he do so much, so consistently, for so long? How was he so insanely productive and full of fun without ever, to my recollection, burning out?

He had a secret weapon. Not an organizing trick. Not a productivity hack. A simple philosophy, a credo, a maxim that he passed on to me, one I feel obliged to share with the world.

When approaching the ho-hum conclusion of some challenging project at work or in the garage or around the house, and the result would serve its purpose well enough — even if it leaned on a little duct tape or otherwise lacked professional polish — Dad would say, simply:

“Good enough for who it’s for!”

Since Dad was self-employed, the “who” was usually him or us, not some demanding overlord. But ultimately isn’t it we, ourselves, who we should seek to please in the end? And anyway, via extensive anecdotal testing at various jobs in my own life, I’ve found that his maxim works pretty well — good enough — no matter who’s in charge. Because progress and success and satisfaction often require simply getting things done, not striving for some hypothetical, subjective ideal, and especially not a notion of perfect we think might be in someone else’s head.

Function over form. Practicality over style. Done versus neverending.

As seen in science

Dad never let perfection be the enemy of a profitable step forward in business, a sufficient fix to the house or yard, or the proverbial good time to be had by all. Certain things just needed to get done (the hard, boring or less important stuff) so that he could move on to the things he wanted to do (the more enjoyable, rewarding or important stuff).

Scientific research reveals just how wise my old man was.

Perfectionism, as perfect as it may sound, actually prevents people from getting things done. Perfectionists tend to set goals that are unattainable, leaving them frustrated and even feeling like unproductive failures, according to an analysis of 95 studies on the subject. And when they do complete a project, even a job done well, perfectionists are apt to feel dissatisfied with it.

“Perfectionists go to work every day and don’t find joy in their work,” study leader Brian Swider, an associate professor in the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, once told me.

Seeking perfection raises the risk of burnout, too, in which a person sinks into a state of exhaustion and emotional numbness and virtually nothing gets done, explains Gordon Parker, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of New South Wales and co-author of a recently published self-help guide to burnout.

“People with perfectionistic traits are usually excellent workers, as they’re extremely reliable and conscientious,” Parker says. “However, they’re also prone to burnout as they set unrealistic and unrelenting standards for their own performance, which are ultimately impossible to live up to.”

Perfectionism is often coupled with low self-esteem, and the pressure to make things just so leads to anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, various studies have found.

Imperfect doesn’t mean schlocky

My wife is a perfectionist. Though she’ll tell you she’s not. That’s what perfectionists do. Being “perfect” seems inconceivable to them, so they don’t realize the degree to which they strive for unachievable or unnecessarily high standards.

When I told her I was writing this article about my father’s good enough ethos, she reminded me of the time many years ago when she launched a small business, a local print magazine. She spent weeks agonizing over the quality of the content and design for the first issue (agonizing over getting things right is what she does, be it work, play or even dinner). Apparently at some point I suggested she just needed to pull the trigger, that the damn thing was good enough. She grudgingly agreed. And then she was never satisfied with the quality of her publication, which for 13 years was inarguably the community’s favorite weekly magazine.

Dad had high standards, too — just never higher than what he knew he could achieve. A newly constructed piece of machinery might have some rough welds, a used motor that wasn’t quite the ideal horsepower but was available, and no spiffy paint job. But it worked, sometimes brilliantly, occasionally solving a problem an entire industry hadn’t thought to contemplate. And getting it done sooner than later meant he could, say, go fishing.

“High standards are important, yet perfectionists often work toward unnecessarily high, self-imposed standards that aren’t expected or necessary,” writes Shelagh Donnelly, a self-described recovering perfectionist who trains business assistants how to work more effectively. “If a colleague has ever commented that you’re a perfectionist, you may want to consider whether you’re investing your energies in the right direction.”

While you are reworking and polishing a project, for example, your boss or coworkers (or family members) may simply be waiting, frustrated, wondering why you haven’t revealed the finished product, Donnelly points out. She speaks my language, offering an example in written work:

“When we edit and re-edit work that was good enough once we made corrections after our initial proofreading,” she says, “we’re not making the best use of our time and resources.”

Setting priorities

No surprise, prioritizing important things over the less important is a key to successful productivity. Perfectionists struggle mightily with this. My wife is prone to making long priority lists. I don’t recall Dad ever having one. He just threw himself into a thing, got it done, then moved on to the next thing.

Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist and author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit, offers three suggestions to prevent perfectionism from thwarting productivity, to which I’ve added some interpretation based on my father’s approach (in parentheses):

• Decide what decisions are most important, and delegate the unimportant stuff to someone else. (Don’t try to do everything!)
• Don’t let rituals or habits force you to do things that aren’t a good use of your time on a given day. (Be flexible!)
• Don’t feel morally obligated to overperform every time. (Let some outcomes underwhelm!)

At the extremes, one person’s good enough might be another’s total disaster, it must be acknowledged. But success — however that elusive goal might be defined — is often found somewhere in the middle.

Dad, for example, was inordinately adept at conceiving and creating things from scratch or fixing what someone else built, so good enough in his hands was often pretty damn good. My good enough, on the other hand, can be an outright calamity if it involves any sort of sustained physical effort, mathematical dexterity or engineering prowess. I am the opposite of a perfectionist in most ways. As a reporter and writer, though, I expect a lot of myself, and the search for the perfect word, phrase, paragraph or headline sometimes bogs things down.

So while this might not be my best story ever, it’s done now, and there are some other things I want to tend to today so, no offense intended, I’ve deemed this one good enough for who it’s for.

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