How to prevent the pull of perfectionism with time pressure
Stop trying to achieve absolute perfection.
I've played 42 games of chess in this ballroom:
In each game I played, I had 90 minutes on my clock. I could split that time up however I wanted, but I had to make all of my moves within that period.
What do you think is a wiser way for me to spend my time?
- Spend 30 min on my tenth move (so I could make a perfect move)
- Spend 30 min to make my first 10 moves (all reasonably good, but not perfect)
I hope you chose the second option. Even if my tenth move was absolutely perfect (100% good), it wouldn’t dramatically affect the overall course of the game. But it would have cost me 30 minutes—valuable time to spend on my other moves.
Why would I obsess over obtaining a perfect move when I could make a reasonably (70-80%) good move in 2-3 minutes? The reasonably good move would be fine and give me more time to consider my other moves.
Perhaps this is a poor analogy, but the point I'm trying to make is that, in life, you should make things "good enough", not strive for perfection. This article is an example of that. I don't think this is a stellar article, but it's good enough for my standards. So it's published and you've read it.