You run into a few things in life that require an exact science. I learned that quickly with baking, where a little bit extra of an ingredient can go a long way in terms of screwing up a dish quick. Whereas, making Coq au vin, a little extra wine and bacon never hurt anyone, right?
That is where I really learned that I needed to pick and choose my battles with perfectionism and things being good enough. Focusing on being perfect all the time is draining, likely annoying to others around you, and most importantly, a major waste of precious time.
You must find that balance between when every detail really counts and “that’s good enough.” Now, I have run into many people in life and business that were always the “that’s good enough”-type and they screwed a lot of stuff up. You cannot be sloppy and careless with things that require great detail.
But nit picking on every single detail of something that doesn’t need to be nit-picked is simply a waste of time.
Part of this is understanding the purpose behind your focus of perfectionism. Are you really making the decision based on the task at hand or is it just a self-serving part of your personality? Maybe you get great satisfaction from being perfect, but you’re also setting yourself up for major disappointment when you come up short. You cannot be perfect at everything, let alone forever.
Remove the self-serving portion of perfectionism from your daily routine and let the weight fall off your shoulders. Look at every task in front of you say is this something were I need to focus on detailed or is this a good enough task? Spending twice as much time on a “good enough” task than you needed is not efficient. And doing “good enough” type work on a task that requires some level of perfection is going to lead to disappointment.
Now there are many shades of gray between perfection and “good enough”, so you don’t have to limit it to those two options.
Focus on making the right decision, not for yourself, but for the task at hand.