The pursuit of perfection often leads to missed deadlines and lost opportunities: I’ve witnessed this firsthand, observing talented individuals striving tirelessly for flawlessness, only to deliver their work past the point of relevance.
In professional settings, the often self-imposed pressure to produce flawless presentations, reports, or projects commonly results in delays that undermine the original purpose: while you may find yourself endlessly tweaking details, unwilling to submit until every aspect meets your exacting standards, circumstances evolve, and priorities change until your solution has become irrelevant.
Similarly, in personal endeavors, the desire for perfection often stalls progress and hinders achievement: whether it’s completing a project, reaching a fitness goal, or pursuing a passion, the insistence on perfection regularly leads to procrastination and missed opportunities. Perfection is often subjective, and an acceptable solution, delivered on time, is almost always more valuable than a perfect one that arrives too late.
I’ve learned the importance of prioritizing action over perfection as one of the basic rules of combat when I was a young infantry officer in the Swiss Army: in military operations, the consequences of delayed action can be the difference between life and death. Learning to deliver an acceptable solution with the available, usually incomplete, information and within the available timeframe served me well during my entire career.
So next time you find yourself running out of time for a project, remember that an acceptable solution delivered on time is superior to the perfect solution delivered late. When you focus on timely execution and functional outcomes, rather than elusive perfection, you can navigate challenges much more effectively and achieve your goals with greater success.
