Move from chasing perfection to making sustainable progress

Valuing quality also means knowing when something is finished

You may revise a presentation many times and still feel it is not good enough. You may want to exercise but keep waiting for the equipment, time, and plan to be ready. Caring about quality is a strength worth keeping. When standards have no endpoint, however, effort can become repeated checking or make it increasingly difficult to begin.

Look at something you have delayed for a long time. Are you preventing a specific error, or pursuing an undefined ‘a little better’? They call for different responses. A problem you can identify can be corrected; a vague sense of unease first needs a clear completion standard.

Separate what is essential from what could be better

Essential standards include accuracy, intended use, safety, and the delivery you promised. Further improvements might be more examples, more refined formatting, or your preferred presentation style. Both matter, but they do not have to be completed in the same version.

Ask: ‘If I deliver this today, can the other person do what they need to do? Which remaining gaps would have a real impact?’ Write the answers as a short checklist. Standards should reflect the task rather than increase with your mood that day. Important work needs adequate checking, but that does not mean every detail needs endless refinement.

Example scenario: begin with a usable first version

Ya-ting wants to put together a portfolio but has not published it for six months. Each time she sees someone else's site, she wants to redesign hers. She sets three requirements instead: three representative projects, a clear account of her role, and an easy way to contact her. Fonts and animation begin with a simple, consistent version.

After completing the first version, she asks friends whether it is understandable and revises the content around their actual questions. She still cares about quality, but improvements now follow a sequence. Feedback after publication shows what really needs strengthening more clearly than comparing more layouts in her head.

Build progress in four small steps

• Write a definition of done: use three to five checkable conditions to explain when this version is ready to deliver.
• Choose the smallest useful version: reduce the scope while keeping what serves the core purpose.
• Schedule checking time: reserve a fixed period for important checks so reviewing does not fill the entire process.
• Keep an improvement list: record new details for later, rank them by impact next time, and avoid overturning everything immediately.

Review the work instead of judging your whole self

After finishing, ask more than ‘Did I do well?’ Consider separately: which practice worked? What needs more practice? What will I change next time? If the result falls short, checking whether time, information, and skills were sufficient is more useful than concluding that you are incapable.

Include the cost of repeating the approach. Staying up late once to produce a good result does not make that method suitable every week. Lasting quality needs a manageable workload, rest, and realistic arrangements. A method you can keep using gives experience a chance to accumulate.

A common pitfall: treating imperfection as carelessness

Letting go of endlessly growing demands does not mean overlooking important errors. Set different levels of checking for different tasks: important information sent outside the organization needs verification, while a practice draft can be used for discussion first. Clarifying the purpose tells you where you can experiment and where you cannot skip a check.

Another pitfall is making steps so small that they never move toward the goal. Once a small version is finished, plan to add one level of difficulty or scope next time. Small steps should keep you moving, rather than hold you indefinitely at the safest starting point.

Write a stopping condition for one task today

Choose something you keep revising. Write down three essential checks, the time available to finish, and one detail to improve later. After completing it, observe what actually happens and whether the problem you feared occurs. Let experience calibrate your standards. Gradually, you can build a way of working that is reliable and sustainable.