Day: February 11, 2016

Revisiting time as a measure of productivity

Lynn

I’ve had some thoughts about time spent writing versus word count quotas that I’m thinking might help me break out of this no-writing funk I’m stuck in.

A while back—more than two years ago, actually—I tried to improve my daily word count by setting myself a daily writing time quota. Although it didn’t work out in the long-run, it did work for a little while. I’m thinking it might be time to revisit “time” as a measuring stick for my dedication to my craft.

I think it might work out better now, and the reason is that I’ve been developing a different attitude about the value of work.

The biggest problem I’ve identified with having a word count quota still exists.

When I rely on word count goals, I put off starting until it’s too late because I’m terrible at estimating how much time it takes me to do things.

But…

When I rely on fixed time goals (schedule based) I lose the motivation to work efficiently because there’s no reward for getting done early.

This particular problem no longer resonates with me, and I believe that’s because of the attitude change which has given me a different perspective.

There is no good version of perfectionism

Lynn

I’ve decided: there is no good version of perfectionism. I used to think differently. I used to believe that some level of perfectionism was okay, or good even. I don’t think that way anymore. Perfectionism is an “ism” because it’s a problem.

Perfectionism isn’t about doing your best. It’s about the fantasy of being perfect. Doing your best is exactly what it sounds like: doing your best. That’s not perfectionism. Conflating the two is dangerous, because you can never win; you’ll never reach perfection even if you do your best every single time.

From there, it’s only a short step to never being good enough. Doing your best won’t matter, because you’ll still feel like you failed.

Perfectionism isn’t about striving to be better, it’s about striving to be perfect. I can easily imagine someone objecting to my rejection of perfectionism with the excuse that it’s okay to try to be better, but that’s the thing. Striving to be better, striving to improve is about improving, not about perfection. Taking it to the place where you need to be perfect isn’t going to do you any favors for the very reason I talked about above: if perfect is your goal, you’ll never get there.

That’s why I no longer believe there’s any good version of perfectionism. None. Perfectionism is a problem that I need to get out of my life in every possible way I can.

Perfection will hold you back. It definitely holds me back. It slows me down when I write and it steals the fun from writing. It often keeps me from enjoying what I do.

There is no good version of perfectionism.