Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Perfect is the enemy of good

I fully embrace this saying attributed to Voltaire. Looking back at my professional career, I simply regret not having made a more liberal use of, in the many business ventures I've been involved with.

While my perfectionism was often motivated by fear or guilt, I always knew - deep inside - that something good enough was vastly preferable to something close to perfection that would have cost too much in terms of time and resources. This truth applies even more in this era of rapid change and of constant evolution. There is no superfluous time left to guild the lily, else the perfectionist is left in the dust!

Something I found on Wikipedia, and in the same vein, is a quote from George Stigler, an economist, that I relate perfectly with: "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport.”

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