THE CURSE OF PERFECTIONISM

By Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

There’s a rule known as the Pareto Principle. It teaches us that 20% of
our efforts produce 80% of our results. The additional 80% of our
efforts will only yield an additional 20% of results. The first thrust
of effort then is the most productive use of our time. The latter thrust
is very costly.

For example, let’s say you allocate 2 hours (which we’ll represent as
20% of your time) to clean a room, a basement, or a garage. Let’s say
that will you will be able to get it to be 80% clean. It won’t be
perfect, but it will be acceptable and a job well done. However, to
squeeze out an additional 20% of results, to make it “perfectly clean”,
will require an additional 80% of your time, or 8 hours. The additional
results are sixteen times more costly than the initial results from 20%
of the effort, not to mention that while you’re trying to squeeze out
those additional results, you are kept from doing a lot of other more
productive things.

This rule has a lot of application to you as a time manager. Ever notice
if you’re in sales how 20% of your customers give you 80% of your sales
and the other 80% of your customers give you the remaining 20% of your
business? Where then should you be spending 80% of your time? With the
20% of the customers who are giving you 80% of your business.

Ever notice how 20% of your relatives give your 80% of your headaches?

It may not always work with exact mathematical precision, but,
typically, the small chunk of input yields the biggest chuck of output
or results.

Most of us benefit from this rule intuitively. When you and I approach a
task (clean a room, prepare a term paper, write up a project, etc.) we
decide to put in a reasonable amount of time and effort to achieve a
reasonable result. The result may not be perfect but it will be
acceptable and this will release us to devote our time to tackling other
endeavors.

We put in a reasonable amount of time and produce a pretty decent
report. It may not be perfect, but putting in a whole lot more time to
make it a little better is not cost-effective and therefore not worth
the effort.

Those who suffer from the Curse of Perfectionism do not understand this
principle. Their goal is always perfection, which, realistically, is
unattainable. For example, you cannot clean a room perfectly. As you
clean it, it’s getting dirty as dust settles. Any written report can be
polished and improved upon with more time and effort. Striving for
perfection is then always stressful and frustrating.

Their overall productivity suffers as they spend an inordinate amount of
time on a few things, trying to make them perfect, rather than a lesser
amount of time on a lot of things that will multiply their results.

The curse is cured when they abandon the need to do their tasks
perfectly, when they understand that excellence in performance is
attaining a degree of perfection, not absolute perfection. This does not
compromise one’s standard of excellence in performance. It enhances
excellent performance with increased results.