14 Days: Compromising Perfectionism

I'm a perfectionist. Maybe you wouldn't know it if you looked at the mess on my desk in my home office. And, I'll admit I'm not a perfectionist at everything. But, on many things, from software development and user experience to puzzles and photography and cooking, I can't help but want perfection. When I wrote about commenting code earlier, I forgot to mention that my comments are also grammatically correct and properly formatted. My variables all have good names and, when I realize I've misnamed something, I want to fix it right then (I did that twice today). I hate putting off fixing things when I know they're broken.

I've worked with plenty of people who were the exact opposite -- so driven to deliver that they would take any excuse to avoid getting things right. That just drives me crazy. Even though I'm a perfectionist, I like the middle ground -- I like the compromises that come out when you have both the perfectionists and deadline-driven folks in the same room. To deliver the best product with limited resources in limited time, compromising is key.

Unfortunately, Groupthink is a team of one and it's hard to compromise with yourself. This is one of the times that I wish I had a team instead of just me.

Short post today. I should have some good news tomorrow.