How do you get past perfectionism when working on a side project? 💎

Hey Bren 👋 I assume you have been looking at other products, sites, or whatever, that look like crap, but are already operating and seemingly getting sales compared to whatever you are launching. This knowledge alone should make you realize that whatever you are working on has reached a "Good Enough" state and needs to be put out there. I see websites of businesses that still look like effing Geocities that get traction... No matter how much perfect you put into something, once it is out there people are going to react differently that you expected, mis-understand your value, and overall not care if something isn't totally right yet. It is always nicer to have it perfect, but get into the habit of accepting "good enough" in your projects, put it out there, get the feedback, and iterate them. I can safely say no platform you have seen or used started perfect in the market. You could also give yourself practice on letting go of perfectionism by doing a 30 day challenge not related to your business. Something like a "draw a day" or "write a day" challenge. Just posting the results publicly, and you are beginning your journey into accepting "good enough". Good Luck!

Treat it as if it's work. By which I mean be clear about what you're trying to achieve, but loose in how you achieve it, and by being specific about why you're doing the thing. To give a concrete example: Write a user story for your next feature for your hobby project. Write a few. Something like: "As a user I want to upload a csv of my expenses so that I can calculate the tax" This means the bit you're working on is finished when that is achieved, even if it's not 'perfect'. For instance you might need to deal with an excel file, or find a way to deal with a column with pound signs, and another with dollars, but you do that *later*. Write the need up, stick it in the list of 'things to do at some point', and then ship what you just built. If the 'perfectionism' part of dollars vs pounds is important, you'll either get to that next, or be told by some one else to get to it. If there's something else that's more important, e.g. Actually calculating the tax, then that will probably naturally come up next :)

The way I think of it is that whatever it is you're working on, it'll never be completely done. You're going to add feature x, y and z but why are you preventing the world from having feature x just because feature y and z aren't done yet? Releasing in small increments early is better than making one big release later. Done is better than perfect - Something a past manager once told me and it stuck.

This is technically the tradeoff between Cost (time resource) and Quality. A good recipe: Define a time constraint. Define all the features to develop. Remove all non-essential features to make them fit in time constraint. If there are too many essential features so that they do not fit in the time constraint, remove essential features to fit in time constraint. Credits to Michael Seibel for this recipe that changed the way I plan products.

Personally, in work it is not a problem for me but for the organisation, I work with it is always a problem.

I agree. Here's an short article I wrote about it: Combatting perfectionism after selling my business: https://www.tomdekan.com/combatt...

You have to work hard on projects, but you must never exceed the time allowed for the project.

My mantra is that if I can’t translate a “perfectionist activity” into clear measurable metric it must go.

Nothing is ever perfect, so I try to define the bare minimum that needs to get done in a specific timeline. If the time is up, whatever the project is gets deployed. I find that I get really focused on actual issues(instead of nice to haves) once it's deployed.

Its a constant struggle. I have gone from mostly loosing that battle to mostly winning them. When I saw that others were making money and my pixel perfect thing didn't bring any money, it was a wake up call.

I like the idea of getting things done as soon as possible (getting past perfectionism no matter what), and then just shaping it into a nice form.

I think a really good technique is to think about what is the minimum feature that your customer needs to start to use your product. If you have this feature ready, you are ready to start 🏄🏻‍♂️

In some sense, a product has to come down to a simple metric. If you are designing something, the response is subjective--on a gradient--but ultimately the metric is client approval. If you build something to sell or get customers, the response is clearly either money or no money. The more experience building and launching, the quicker and more clearly you will be able to realize the point during building at which the thing you are working on would likely reach your chosen metric. Perfect is for fun, not required for business.

I assume you have been looking at other products, sites, or whatever, that look like crap, but are already operating and seemingly getting sales compared to whatever you are launching. This knowledge alone should make you realize that whatever you are working on has reached a "Good Enough" state and needs to be put out there. I see websites of businesses that still look like effing Geocities that get traction... No matter how much perfect you put into something, once it is out there people are going to react differently that you expected, mis-understand your value, and overall not care if something isn't totally right yet. It is always nicer to have it perfect, but get into the habit of accepting "good enough" in your projects, put it out there, get the feedback, and iterate them. I can safely say no platform you have seen or used started perfect in the market. You could also give yourself practice on letting go of perfectionism by doing a 30 day challenge not related to your business. Something like a "draw a day" or "write a day" challenge. Just posting the results publicly, and you are beginning your journey into accepting "good enough".

You could also give yourself practice on letting go of perfectionism by doing a 30 day challenge not related to your business. Something like a "draw a day" or "write a day" challenge. Just posting the results publicly, and you are beginning your journey into accepting "good enough". Good Luck!

I think a really good technique is to think about what is the minimum feature that your customer needs to start to use your product. If you have this feature ready, you are ready to start 🏄🏻‍♂️

Keep up the good work!

I really like the saying “finished is better than perfect.” Basically meaning that a finished product that’s out there and in the hands of your users is always going to be better for them than the product that’s been obsessed over so much that it never leaves the laptop. Like @luisgustavo said here as well, I like to think about what the minimum is when validating an idea (minimum viable product). This helps me frame it almost as a test, helping me move on when I find myself spending a ton of time on something that isn’t pushing a project forward. Great question Bren! I’m excited to see what other people do. Have a great rest of your Monday.