Start Now, Get Perfect Later: Why Consistency Beats Perfection Every Time

For the purposes of imperfection, I am going to publish this post without my usually editing and formatting.

It is sort of a “meta” post really, as an experiment; 

In a world where everything is polished and so SEO-heavy posts these days look identical to every other post out there. We are trading personality for keywords. 

This is only my 15th post, so I am still learning what do do with this site. 

Perhaps imperfection will be what is most authentic and relatable?

That being said, let’s get into the post…

Start Here:

There was an experiment where a room of people were divided and given the task of creating a clay bowl, this bowl would then be judged and scored and the team with the highest total score would win.

here is how it went:

Team 1: To make as many bowls as possible in 1 hour.

Team 2: To spend 1 hour trying to make the perfect bowl.

Which team won?

…

…..

…….

Team 1 won!

It turns out that you are more likely to arrive at a better outcome from trial and error (and a sprinkle of serendipity perhaps) than from spending all of your time focussing on being perfect.

Section 1: The Planning Trap

This for me is my biggest strength and my biggest weakness;

If you are reading this post you are probably really good at planning, refining the plan, coming up with a radical new plan and eventually you end up putting more time into planning than doing. Don’t be fooled into feeling progression by listening to stories of other people making it or other stories confirming how bad it is to be in your position.

This is doing nothing, no action is being made towards the place you want to get to; all you are doing is savagely confirming that you want to get there, and sometimes that can trick you into feeling like you have moved forward. doing this is like watching the spiral of a screw, there is no actual movement, but it looks like each band is progressing. it is an illusion.

Productive procrastination – Are you guilty?

Productive procrastination is basically doing something else instead of the task you are meant to be doing, however, the task you are doing instead is usually productive in some way. Things I have done instead of drafting this post are:

• Spring cleaning
• Organising a wardrobe
• Going shopping
• Reading
• Doing uni work
• Going to the gym
• Asking ChatGPT to give you and in-depth explanation of the Jam making process.
• Rearraging furniture for more feng shui (can’t write when that TV is angled like that ofc)

There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, but when they are done to avoid another task, that is when it becomes an isssue.

Section 2: Planning vs Action

Now, lets explore the nuance of meticulously planning and see how far it gets us.

Firstly, what is the point in refining a plan that hasn’t been tested? I mean, by all means make adjustments after the first draft or first time thinking about it, but if you are still refining the plan 6 months later…would you have been in a better position now if you had started 6 months ago? More than likely.

Obviously, there are some caveats to this…A wedding for example. It’s a bit pointless refining the wedding plan after the wedding. But for things which are iterative, that is, are an ongoing process and changeable, then do it and course correct as you go along.
2 people have the task of solving a hedge maze – Person A stands at the entrance and has 2 hours to think about tactics, algorithms, potential pitfalls and wrong turns. Person B walks into the maze and has the same 2 hours to do it by trial and error.

Now, Person A could very well just walk in and get to the centre in under 10 minutes after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, first try. Fine.
Person B could also spend 3 hours walking around and finally get there after dozens of wrong turns. Also Fine.
If we look at it from an odds point of view – if you gave 100 people the task of Person A and 100 for Person B’s task, which decision is likely to end up with most people finding the centre?

This is a long way of saying “doing, even badly and inefficiently is far more likely to get you to where you want when compared to spending all the time preparing”

Here are some #inspirational quotes

“Laws which are consistent in theory often prove chaotic in practice.”

— Napoleon

Thank you Peep Show (see TV is educational), this sums it up – You can have the “perfect” plan and it all go horribly when you try to enact it.

“Do be a doer, don’t be a don’ter”

— Ken Jeong in Pain and Gain

Motivational fluff, but worth the tongue-in-cheek mention, 🙂
And Finally:

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”

— Mike Tyson

A little intense, but the same commonality these sayings have is that plans are good for a guideline, but once you have your idea or guideline, then try it and see how it fares in the real world.

 

Section 3: Pep Talk

Things to remember:

• Some days are going to be very difficult
• Some goals you do will wilt with inaction, but goals are rarely dead forever. You must weigh-up how much stress it is bringing you, how much positivity/well-being it is bringin you and if you are likely to be able to consistently do it so that you are not constantly spinning your wheels.
• It is okay to “course correct” if things are not working out. Before you drop something completely you should take stock of why it is not working and then decide whether doing it is possible, or atleast sensible for you to continue with. Just because something is possible doesn’t make it worthwhile; One person’s dream path is another’s walk through hell.
• You are probably pushing from the hinge, not the handle – that is, it is not that you are not putting in the effort, you are probably doing too much but just in the wrong area. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then try and push a door open a few inches away from the hinges, there is a reason the handle is on the far side. This is working with physics, not taking short-cuts.
• “The Wall of Awful” – This is the no man’s land between thinking and doing.
• Even doing 1 thing, 5 minutes, one sentence, one piece of laundry off of the floor, one bottle in the bin, one trip to your front door and back. You have to bridge the gap; people make the mistake that they can just go from 0 to everything being “sorted”, it doesn’t work like that. Rome wasn’t built in a day, a day at the gym isn’t wasted by eating a takeaway, a trip to the shops wasn’t wasted if you just browsed, if you spoke to someone for just small talk that day, or even said “hi”, even a smile. Officially, this is known as the “Kaizen philosophy” which is basically the premise that even very small improvements compound over time to make big changes. An aircraft that takes off and is 1 degree west off-target will drift almost 100ft/30m for every mile (1.6km) flown. After flying 500mi/805km the plane will be 9mi/14.5km west of the airport. To put it another way, Olympus mons – the tallest mountain in the solar system (on the planet Mars) is 2.5x taller than Everest and is so wide that you could walk to the summit almost as easily as walking on flat ground. Why? because the gradient of Olympus mons is 5% or a 1/20 incline, Everest is no lower than 15% (about 1/7) and can get as steep as 60% (2/3 gradient or twice as steep as a 1/3). Now, to summit Olympus mons you would have to walk for around 200mi/320km which sounds a Gargatuan feat, but is really “only” 400,000 steps. On average, it takes about 42 days to summit everest at 8848m altitude, to reach 8848m up Olympus mons, you would only have to walk 5,000 steps per day and you will get there in about 40 days. I think my point is, people look at the peak and get overwhelmed, but really they need to see that even small accomplishments pile up over time.
• This singular post has taken me 4 weeks to write until this point and it may very well take another 4 weeks to publish. I really do not like the process of “blogging”, I find it tedious, but the feeling I get when I know it is purposeful outweighs the heaviness. Obviously, that doesn’t magically make me start banging out 10 posts per week, but it makes something tedious worth it. Purpose>Motivation.

 

Section 4: Okay, But How Do I Start?

 

Some people like the “JUST DO IT” Shia Lebeouf x Nike way of doing things. Although, I feel like if you are one of these people, you probably wouldn’t be reading this, and if you are reading this instead of doing something you are procrastinating on. Stop procrastinating and JUST DO IT.

I find that Pomodoro (or tomato in Italian, referring to a tomato shaped timer)  is a good way of time management and prevents hours of 1/2 doing things, rather than dedicated periods of time doing specific things.

Pomodoro’s are typically 25/5 I think? which means you set a timer for 25mins and do the task, you have 5 mins rest, then continue to do x number of cycles.

Personally, I like 25/10 or 25/15. Hey, If it has to be 25/25 that is okay, as that is a still work done. However, the longer the break the more chance of losing momentum, the shorter the break the more likely you are to not complete the next focus slot.

Play around with focus/rest times and see which ratio works best with you.

The method I am using writing this section of the post is the “Ugly first draft” mixed with “Breadcrumbing” – which just means I am writing in a stream of consciousness way, not stopping for punctuation, grammar or sentence structure, I am just writing. if writing takes 10 minutes and editing takes 10 minutes, it would (oddly) take about an hour to write and edit simultaneously.

So, just do it, tidy it up after, it will separate it into 2 different tasks which is better for executive dysfunction.
The breadcrumb method means I am writing Section 4 today, not 3 posts per day.

Any progress is good progress, If that means it takes me 2 months to write this post, then so be it. it is a slow process. But that brings me onto the next point:

It definitely helps to have an inner-motivation or intrinsic interest in the task you are trying to complete, you don’t find it difficult to procrastinate, you likely find the alternative more boring.

With any task it helps to:

• name it, define it.
• break it down
• estimate the time
• think about how life will be better after doing it.

goblin.tools – quick shoutout to a very handy, free AI resource designed to help Neurodivergent people with daily tasks!

SMART:

In business class in school we learned about SMART goals, these goals are:

• Specific – Something that tells you it is done- Publish this post.
• Measurable – (has an end point/can track)
• Actionable – I have the resources needed to work on it.
• Realistic – Is this a realistic task to do right now? Do I have too much Uni work to prioritise for now? Is writing this much in this amount of time really something I can do? If I set a goal to write and publish a post in 30 mins start to finish, that is absolutely not realistic for me.
• Time bound – the task should have a deadline, if you are a person who waits until the night before to write a 1000 word essay, you know that tasks fill the time you give it. If the essay was due a year from now, would you really do any work on it now?

perhaps, fear motivates you, I suppose that is a little motivator for me in this blog project. they say (I never know who they are but they seem wise) that you regret most what you didn’t do over what you did you. That is to say there is more peace in trying and failing than not trying and kicking yourself for what could have been.

In that regard, I use this philosophy for this blog thing because I have a weird gut feeling that I should try it and stick at it, even if it takes years.

 

Section 5: Closing Reality Check

Some closing words, a sort of “Too Long; Didn’t Read” (TL;DR):

1. Remind yourself that the feel-good daydreaming and motivation will get you nowhere fast.
2. If you ever get an urge to do something, do it. You wanted motivation and here it is, do not “file it away” these urges are random, go with your natural flow. If you get an urge to clean the bathroom, then do it.
3. Not only do you get something done, but you also cause a bit of upward spiral momentum, the more you use these moments, the more you see how good it feels, the more “urges” your body will send you. This is a concept that is a pillar in depression help called “Behavioural Activation”.
4. Realise that even doing a miniscule amount of anything is fine, it is closer to where you want to be.
5. Have process goals, not outcome goals – you cannot control the results, only the effort you give something.
6. Don’t forget, we are just smart animals, the brain we have today is pretty much the same brain we had 30,000 years ago. your brain is great at adaptation, but the most complex known contraption in the universe can get burnt out from too many emails or not enough sleep.
7. If you cannot do it today, or tomorrow or the next day. Then don’t be upset, productivity is abused these days; as long as your lack of doing isn’t harming you or others then take rest, this isn’t a race.
8. Changing something without measuring it is just a recipe for frustration. use SMART framework for goals.
9. Do not take too many goals on. The “Warren Buffet Method” (no proof he said this) is to list 30 goals, rank them on how much they mean to you, then get the top 5 and focus of them. too many goals (at once) just means you don’t get anywhere because your efforts are too distributed.

 

“Start now. Get perfect later. That’s how every masterpiece begins.”