perfectionism as procrastination

armour of “high standards”:

• procrastination usually looks like laziness (watching TV instead of working), which carries heavy burden of guilt
• perfectionism looks like work, allowing for delayed shipping while feeling industrious

ego protection:

• if idea / project is never finished, it remains pure potential
• can’t be judged / criticised / rejected
• moment it’s live, it becomes real + vulnerable ➡️ perfectionism is a shield against that vulnerability

illusion of productivity:

• endless research, tweaking formatting, reorganising folders, etc. feels like progress
• in reality, it’s motion without action

law of diminishing returns:

• effort required to take something from 0% to 80% is often same amount of effort required to take it from 80% to 90%
• perfectionists spend all energy in that final 20%, where ROI drops off a cliff

Parkinson’s Law:

• “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
• because a perfectionist’s work is theoretically never perfect, timeline expands infinitely unless artificial boundary is forced on it

tool tinkering:

• spending hours customising CSS / downloading new plugins / redesigning tag hierarchies instead of just writing!

orphan node trap:

• writing massive, comprehensive essay / blog post offline & waiting for it to be “complete” before adding it to garden, completely missing the point of growing small, interconnected atomic ideas over time

define “done” in advance:

• before starting, establish exact criteria for completion
• eg in digital garden: 3 paragraphs + 2 outbound links
• once criteria met, publishing is a MUST

timeboxing:

• give idea a strict time limit
• eg I’ll write about this concept for 25 mins; whatever’s there gets published with #seedling tag

embracing iteration:

• a digital garden note is a living document
• can fix typos tomorrow 😅