About four months ago, I got an offer to write a sponsored blog post in my ERP Blog. The topic was 'ERP Market in India'. I asked for two weeks of preparation to deliver the post.
I quickly got down to researching on the topic. I read voraciously, took notes copiously. I exhausted the Internet looking for relevant material. I sat in front of my computer surfing the net for three straight days !! By the end of three days I had almost 10 pages of handwritten notes.
(This blog post by Tim Urban explains how procrastinators get things done)
You could say that I had enough and more of material for a 1000 word blog post.
But that is not how I felt. I felt helpless. I felt that I don't have any material to even start the blog post. I felt that my research was pedestrian and amateur. This drove me to the Internet with more vigour in search of more relevant material. I checked the websites of product vendors (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Epicor), implementation partners (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech, Accenture), top three consulting companies (EY, PwC, KPMG) and Government websites. I downloaded pages of PDF documents, read and made notes...
Still it felt incomplete. The complete picture was not yet clear in my mind. I couldn't start writing till every information was fully and completely available and the structure was fully present in my mind...
I felt I was not ready to start....
Days went by quickly and I was left with just one day to deliver. And I had not started because I felt I was not ready.
I remember my delivery was due on Friday evening. Thursday was coming to an end and I had not started.
I felt anxious. I felt highly stressed. I even contemplated informing the customer that I will not be able to deliver on time.
Midnight of Thursday, I went out for a walk. I went to have a hot black tea from a nearby hotel that was open around that time. Post tea, I wandered around the city, barely noticing anything. This damn blog post was hanging on my head like a Damocles sword.
Finally I willed myself to start. I came back to the room at 3.00 AM and opened the laptop and created the article structure. I had the main headings and sub headings in place. Then I started adding meat to the post. By the time I went to sleep at 6.30 AM, my first draft was almost ready.
I realized that I already possessed all the information required for the article.The only thing holding me back was my perfectionism. I wanted to do a perfect job. I wanted to write the greatest blog post ever on ERP Market in India. I had set too high a standard for myself.
This incident came to my mind recently when I was reading an article by Elizabeth Grace Saunders titled 'Letting go of perfectionism'. As a recovering perfectionist, I could identify with all the points made by Ms.Saunders. Perfectionism demands a lot from the individual. On the one hand, it makes you doubt your capabilities and prevent you from starting anything new until you have all the pieces in place, as shown by my experience above. On the other hand, it makes you judgmental and critical of the (imperfect, in your opinion) output delivered by others.
How do you handle the situation if you are a perfectionist?
Author talks of two different personality types, the Creative Perfectionist (CPER, from now on) and Creative Pragmatist (CPRA). The article explains how these personality types handle different phases of a project.
CPER do not start a project work until all the pieces are in place. Complete plan of action and information should be available before they start the work. They procrastinate waiting for perfect and complete everything and end up rushing the job if at all. Most of the time they get anxious and give up.
CPRA divides the project into small number of elements and schedule time to work on one or a few elements. This moves the project forward and the progress motivates continued effort. CPRA understand that the first stage of a project is messy, but start anyway.
Having started, CPER agonizes over every minute detail of the work, editing their work at every step instead of coming out with an imperfect first draft. Faced with gap in information, they often go off tangent, spending inordinate amount of time researching for unimportant details (What is the exact word the means 'Comforting'. Let me check Thesaurus. Use 'Comforting' dammit and move on). By the end of it, they know so much that it becomes difficult to narrow down the possibilities. The first draft never gets done.
CPRA identifies the time available between elements and start working on the most important elements first. That way, they will be able to make a clear assessment of a potential time overrun and plan for it. In most cases, this approach allows them to quickly complete the initial draft and leaves them with enough time to review it once again.
CPER agonizes over finishing. There is always little bit more to add or remove or edit. Their work is never done. There is always room for more 'Bells and Whistles' in their work.
CPRA considers a project as finished when it has met the minimum requirements. Saying that a work is completed doesn't mean that it can't be improved upon. It just means that the work has met the initial criteria of completion.
Finally, how do they handle feedback? Negative feedback makes CPER feel like a failure. CPRA welcomes feedback as an opportunity for improvement. They know that they can 'choose' to respond to a feedback.
Creative Pragmatist (CPRA) approach should not be confused with compromising. For them it means finishing one project and quickly moving on to the next project. This approach will fill you with new energy which enhances creativity. They realize that it is customer, not you, who is the final judge of the quality of the output.
Paradoxically, by delivering more and more, and developing expertise, the pragmatist will end up a perfectionist !!!
After reading this article, I have become aware of the need for delivering first draft at the earliest. I am temporarily becoming a pragmatist...
Man, it is tough.
Man, it is tough.
(If you wonder if my blog post was accepted, check out the post in my blog)
1 comment:
Thank you
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