An Uncomfortable Admission On Work

2 minute read | Last updated 25-Jan-2022 |  Rant, Ship30for30

I had a conversation with a friend today about accepting “good enough” as a result. For year, I’ve absolutely f**king hated “good enough” when it comes to my work.

…and that’s held me back in a number of ways.

I constantly fight the urge to continue to work on something. To put just a little bit more time into it. To make it just a little bit closer to perfect.

Of course, no matter how much time or effort I put into the work, it’s never perfect. Perfect is impossible.

Ironically, there is always a point where I’ve put too much work into something and it suffers because of it.

It’s taken year and years of mental effort to push past my aversion to “good enough.” It’s still there. I still cringe when I stop working on something and declare “good enough.”

This was one of the motivations for my joining the effort in #Ship30for30, to push through “good enough.” Writing 30 atomic essays in 30 days requires me to just let go a “good enough.”

I don’t have the time to keep making those changes to the work. You can only iterate so much in the time allotted before you’ve got to move onto the next essay.

I’m still deeply uncomfortable shipping things when I still view them as incomplete. But I’m also often shooting for a 7 when a 3 would do.

And honestly, In the moment when I can objectively evaluate what I’ve done, most of the time good enough actually is.