Would you consider yourself a perfectionist? Very often than ever, many people’s answer to that question is ‘yes’. A personality trait that a lot of people claim with pride and often feel good about possessing. There was a time when being a ‘perfectionist’ was perceived as being a great and ‘perfect’ way to be, and a lot of us looked up to people who always seemed to do things with the utmost ‘perfection’.
According to Wikipedia, “perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality style characterised by a person’s concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding other’ evaluations.” By this definition, there has been various theories around perfectionism and that striving for this ‘endless flawlessness’ can be associated with what is called the impostor syndrome, and may not necessarily be the best method to yield maximum productivity, more especially in the workplace.
Here’s 6 different ways in which perfectionism can hinder your productivity:
- Procrastination
People who are perfectionists tend to wait for the “right” moment to work on certain goals because they believe that the need to have a level of readiness in order to execute. Many times, that readiness doesn’t always come so easily and a time gets wasted in the waiting process.
- Constantly spotting mistakes
Perfectionists are often good at spotting mistakes. When working in a team, that could be a great strength to have as they help highlight critical details and possible improvements that the team might have missed. Sometimes that can get out of hand because you can only improve one thing so much before you start obsessing about how good enough it is.
- Spending copious amounts of time on one thing
It’s not uncommon for perfectionists to sacrifice sleep, their well being and quality time with their loved ones just to reach their goal to exceed expectations. Sometimes the expectation is the expectation and the need to do more is not necessary.
- Prioritising decisions
Perfectionists tend to have a difficult time in distinguishing between important decisions and unimportant decisions. Because imperfections bother them, they automatically classify everything as worthy of their full effort, even mundane tasks that are not top priority.
- The need for control
Sometimes, it’s impossible for tasks and projects to go as planned. Perfectionists spend a lot of time and energy beating themselves up when things do not go as expected. Time and energy that can be used coming up with solutions. It’s okay to let go and allow yourself to go beyond you own limitations to find inspiration and solutions from the unexpected.
- Biting off more that you can chew
As much as trying to get a lot of things done in a day, week or any given time, it is important to realistically measure what is possible at a time. Having a long list of things to do can lead to procrastination, which often results to one having anxiety about not being productive. When actually, you have set yourself up for failure by trying to eat an elephant in one day.
Let’s face it, we all need a perfectionist in our team, but just as the famous saying goes – ‘too much of anything is bad.’ With perfectionists, it’s also important for them to allow themselves to trust that the sky won’t fall if anything is not done to ‘perfection’, because the most creative things in life have come from the most imperfect moments.
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