Is the Quest for Perfection Hurting Your Business?

Have you ever had a time when three simple words gave you a much-needed kick in the butt?

Yesterday, I was talking with my friend, Helen Brahms, when she shared this quote:

"Production over perfection".

That phrase really struck a chord with me, because while I'm getting better at letting go of my perfectionistic tendencies, I often wait until I think I can do things perfectly or almost perfectly before I do them at all.

As a result, some things simply don't get done for days... weeks... months... even though a "good enough" version would help me to move my business forward, and would get better results than no version at all.

This revelation was particularly relevant today, because I needed to shoot a "thanks for signing up" video for my upcoming webinar. I didn't get enough sleep last night, and I was definitely feeling the effects while shooting the video.

Part of me was tempted to postpone the shoot.

I would have loved to wait until a day when I'd gotten more sleep. And the temptation got stronger as soon as I began to do the video.

The instant I looked up from my notes, my tired brain completely discarded the memory of what I'd just read, leaving me staring blankly at the camera or stumbling through an incoherent version of what I'd written down.

I had to repeatedly look down at my laptop between brief spurts of speech, and do the video one paragraph at a time. Thank God for video editing software.

I'd hoped to have a cat do the video with me, for extra "cute, funny and interesting" points. (And to distract people from my less-than-stellar sleep-deprived performance.) Sadly, even though I chose my household's least uptight cat, she started to growl within seconds, so I had to abandon that idea. At least for this time.

I'll probably have to re-do this video at some point, so it can get the best possible results. Maybe next time, the cat will be more amenable to having her two minutes in the spotlight.

But in the meantime, this "good enough" cat-free version will enable to me to move forward with the webinar, and that's better than doing nothing at all.

Do you have a project you're procrastinating on until you can get it "just right"?

Can you do a "good enough" version today, to enable you to move forward until you can make something better?

As always, I look forward to your comments.