Perfectionism is for cowards

That’s what the sticker says that my sister-in-law put on our bathroom wall, when she stayed with us a few years ago. It’s still there above the sink, because I kind of like it (also, I’m too lazy to take it off). The text is written in an imperfect handwritten font, the words are truncated incorrectly. And my sister-in-law put the sticker on the wall completely unaligned with anything else. Everything about the sticker is perfectly imperfect.

It’s a nice daily reminder that perfectionism is indeed for people who are afraid. That includes me. Today I worked on a PowerPoint presentation and I’m the kind of person who wants to get every slide just right. No typos, consistent layout, no misalignments. Yes, I’m a perfectionist. Being one can be a lot of work. After dinner I had to open my laptop again to finish the slides for tomorrow.

Then I remembered the sticker. What am I afraid of, if the slides are not ‘perfect’? Will people even notice? And if they do, what will happen? Not much probably. So I finished the slides quickly. I didn’t do a sloppy job or anything, but I decided that good enough is good enough.

As this comic book artist nicely explains, trying to make everything perfect will wear you out:

What is true for comic book panels, is also true for sentences in an article, for screens in a user flow, for shots in a movie and for slides in a PowerPoint. This quote tweet nails it for me:

It’s true. Storytelling is more important than every part being perfect. I will keep that in mind when I give my presentation tomorrow.