Perfection is the enemy of the good

I wanted to take a moment and write about something that has been bugging me. It's a quote from Voltaire, "Perfect is the enemy of good." And this is something I see in creative people all the time. Or, I should say, something I see in "would be" creative people. You don't pick up a paint brush and watch Van Gogh's Sunflowers appear on the canvas. You don't sit down at a piano and play Beethoven's 5th Symphony after a couple of weeks of lessons. But it seems like people expect that from themselves when they start a new creative endeavor. They expect perfection, and that kills their creativity from ever getting a start.

In a work context, this is a disease. Rewriting the same function over and over, when it was working 5 iterations ago. Not bothering to write that bash script that covers 90% of your use case and would be a huge benefit to your productivity because, well, that missing 10% is still missing.

It's a trap. It's a trap that keeps you from ever getting started. It's a trap that keeps you from ever finishing. I just wanted to give you a little encouragement to let go of perfection and embrace the good. The good is where you learn. The good is where you grow.