You have captured so eloquently what research is learning about procrastination! This is the stuff that entrepreneurs waste their time with. Not because they want to waste their time. It just feels that if you just tweak one thing a little more, it will be perfect and then everything else will be perfect. It can feel like you are doing something productive. Like you pointed out, it’s important to stop focusing entirely on what is not adequate. Celebrate what you’re doing well and this will enable you to choose when to trust your judgement and when something deserves a 2nd look.

That’s the thing about content marketing. You have to generate the content and keep it going.

I’ve been working on a project for months, well, more like procrastinating for months. I haven’t even outlined the curriculum yet because I’m not sure how to frame the theoretical [or whatever it is] part, even though I could write the practical part in my sleep. And that practical part would likely be of the most value to the members.

I don’t even have a fancy logo for the project! Seeing that the big guys can launch without a logo is relief and no longer a reason not to proceed.

Ok, Monday morning is the time to outline the 12-13 lessons. Anyone want to hold me to that?

Great post, and one that is sorely needed. Not finishing is a major problem for creative people, and it’s a painful one. I wrote an e-book to help people finish projects – Cross the Finish Line: Overcome the Hurdles to Completion because this is such an issue with my clients and many creative types.

I particularly like your list of the voices that clamor for attention when you’re trying to finish. For me, the week before launch is a bit hellish, with all the details that must be covered plus that nagging voice making me think that if every single thing isn’t absolutely perfect, I’m going to be boiled in a vat of hot oil and then strung up before my audience to be further tortured. (One must bring some humor to this – it’s one of the ways to keep going despite that voice!)

One thing that I have found helps my clients is to get a sense of what will be different when they complete. We’re so accustomed to our self-identification with not finishing that we often can’t imagine what it will be like when we actually do complete something. Stepping over the line in our minds can give us a sense of what awaits us. The carrot rather than the stick.

I think perfection has little to do with thorough professionalism and everything to do with trying to overcome that ‘not good enough’ critic. We never seem to have a concise and specific metric for perfection, and as such it’s an ever-elusive ideal zone we’ll never get to, much less enjoy. I challenge clients to articulate their standard for excellence and then to drive toward that rather than some vague and impossible-t-meet standard of perfect.

Great post for the new year. I hope it inspires people to complete things so they get the sense of satisfaction that waits on the other side.

I really have to force myself to just stop and move on to the next project. Also, working too long on a project often times makes me very tired resulting in changes that probably would have been better left unchanged.

It was an awesome post to overcome my main problems. Which is PROCRASTINATION. I find that I’m into perfection and thats makes me unfinished all my jobs.

I will take your advice to overcome it. Thanks a lot.

One thing I’ve learned: “business” problems are never business problems. At their root, they’re always personal problems.

Perfectionism is a great tool for striving toward producing quality goods, but as you said, it can be a terrible time-waster. That is why we should learn to moderate perfectionism so that we can hop over the fence that is hindering us from advancing toward our goal.

Nike’s slogan is brilliant, because that is what it usually comes down to. Just hit ‘Publish’. Just release that report you’ve been trying to make perfect for the past three weeks. Just register that domain name. Just put yourself out there. Just do it!

Perfectionism is capable of bringing as equally bad repercussions as procrastination, so we must beware of becoming its tool.

I’d already decided that it’s my goal in 2010 to just put stuff out there and see how it goes. If the article/webapp/whatever you produce is good enough then people get past the lack of perfection.

Nice to see you back blogging!

@mikeo – Join the support group, the coffee is warm

@Jeff – I like that quote, good one

@Adam – And it feels great when you make progress doesn’t it?

@Dylan – As a developer I learned to recognise when I was “gold plating” but strangely it took me a while to recognise it in other things

@Dave – Great tip!

@Eric – Great I remember my students would always play with their assignments right up to the moment where it was pass or fail time!

@Simon – Chris Brogan is the master and with all the flying he does I imagine he has LOTS of random thought time!

@Abhijeet – Thanks for the link

@Kyle – Priorities are essential, and especially remembering that other people’s priorities don’t take precedence over yours

@Melissa – Such a shame that good habits go away easy but bad ones stick around, eh?

@Are – Accountability can work very well if you are motivated/afraid of other people. For some people it doesn’t work at all because they are self motivated.

@Molly – Yeah I have to do one personal project at a time because client work and family stuff takes up so much. If I try to juggle too much I drop too many balls

@Tomas – A blog post is done when it makes the point that you set out to explain. Your readers will tell you in page views, retweets and comments when they liked it. If you miss the mark, explain it a different way in a new post

@Debra – I have picked the perfect place to live, I just have to handle all the logistics and family issues now

@Richard – It can be hard for perfectionists to get the idea of “good enough” but we have to try!

@dseibold – We can always improve, I think problems come when we make improving the whole job rather than delivering

@Yusuf – Thanks for reading

@Jared – Exactly, as I said a little while ago, we owe it to the world to share what we know

@Haya – My wife is a fan of EFT, I will have to mention it

@Stuart – My brother is a musician and he has had to learn the hard way that creating and performing are only two of the many jobs he has taken on – he has to be a marketeer, promoter, project manager …