Don't Make Easy Things Hard
I am admittedly an on-the-road-to-recovery perfectionist. I have a talent for making things more complex than they need to be. It’s a version of creativity, a desire to build for quality, but one that can work against me.
The funny thing is that making easy things hard often looks like effort. Overthinking and tweaking when something already works can feel productive, but it usually just wastes time and energy.
Take writing, for example. Most good writing is simple. Say what you mean as clearly as you can and then stop. But people tend to keep adding layers. They think they’re improving it, but they’re just making it harder to read. This happens in marketing a lot.
The same thing happens with decisions. Let’s say you’re picking a restaurant. The most straightforward approach is to choose one that is good enough and move on. But some people turn it into a research project as if the perfect choice is waiting to be discovered. They end up with more stress and less time to enjoy dinner.
What’s behind this tendency? Fear, I’d say. Fear of being wrong. Fear of missing out. Fear of looking lazy. Fear of not being the best. But these fears are misplaced. In most cases, the cost of getting it wrong is small, and the benefit of being decisive is huge.
Lesson Learned (Learning?): The hard part isn’t doing more. It’s knowing when to stop. Most things don’t need to be perfect. They need to be done. When you recognize that, you free yourself to focus on what matters most.