Done Is Better Than Perfect: Just Launch It and Improve as You Go

There is no "day of ultimate perfection." Share what you have now and get better over time.

Many people who create content in just about any format or medium (including myself) have a terrible habit of perfectionism. As we’re writing, recording, illustrating, sculpting, or whatever it is we do, we have a tendency to think “I’m not ready yet.”

“It’s not quite done,” we tell ourselves. “This isn’t finished yet.” “It’s just a rough draft—I need to do another version.”

This is something I battle with every day. As one notable example, when I write an important email, I sometimes spend so much time crafting it just the right way, saving it as a draft, running over it again and again with my fine-toothed comb of perfectionism, reading and re-reading, and telling myself: “It’s still not ready. I’ll save it as a draft and come back and fix it.”

You know what happens a lot of times when I do that? I forget all about it.

Hours or even days go by, and then I get an email from someone saying, “Hey, weren’t you going to send me an email about (such and such)?” and I panic, look it over really fast, and send it.

Sometimes, I’ll just randomly open my email drafts folder and see a message—almost perfectly written by now—that is about 13 days old, and wonder “Why didn’t I send this?”

Why do we do this? Why do I do this?

There are several reasons:

1. Self-doubt: we think what we’ve created isn’t good enough and never will be.

2. Imposter syndrome: we think we’re not good enough, and that we have no right to even have an opinion, or that what we have to say is stupid.

3. Perfectionism: we think, “It’s not quite good enough; if I keep refining it, maybe it will eventually be good enough.”

4. Fear: we think people won’t like it, or they’ll say mean things about us. “What will people say?” we ask ourselves, and not knowing the answer to this is paralyzing enough to not take any action.

5. Complacency: we think that it’s not so urgent, and we say: “I’ll get around to it later.”

Note that all the above start with “we think,” because it’s true—we are our own worst enemies. It is our own thoughts, fears, and internal dialogue that prevents us from doing what we want.

Humans are kind of weird that way.

When I was growing up, my dad would often use the phrase “the day of ultimate perfection.” I never knew (and still don’t know) if he was kidding or not when he referred to this mythical holiday.

He’d say, “Someday, on the day of ultimate perfection, we will be able to (fill in the blank).” He usually said it with sarcasm, so I think he didn’t really mean it, but I think he actually believed that a “day of ultimate perfection” was possible but unlikely to ever come.

I think he always hoped it would but didn’t expect it.

In my own life, I tell my marketing clients all the time that they “shouldn’t wait for perfection” — they should send me whatever they’ve got when it comes to blog posts, articles, product brochures, logos, photography, video clips, etc. Whatever they’ve got that we can use for marketing, I tell them to send it my way so I can clean it up and get it out the door.

All the time, I tell them things like:

• “Send it…”

• “Ship it…”

• “Launch it…”

• “It’s good enough…”

• “We’ll go with that…”

And one of my biggest mottos in business: “Done is better than perfect.”

(FYI: if you think Sheryl Sandberg came up with this while working at Facebook, you’re wrong. I’ve been saying this since 2006, long before she even worked there).

The problem, though, is that I rarely take my own advice, and I’m often stuck holding onto the content I create, waiting for the day of ultimate perfection.

But, as I said before, that day doesn’t exist. There is no day of ultimate perfection. The time to launch is now… for my clients, for you, and for me.

Whenever I’m trying to prove the point to a client or prospect who doesn’t believe me, I like to give them a little trick to prove I’m right.

“Who is your favorite content creator?” I’ll ask them.

Inevitably, they’ll tell me they really like a particular YouTube channel, podcast, or something else like that, and then I run an experiment.

“Let’s see what their content looked like in the early days, shall we?” I ask.

If I can, I like to do it while they’re with me right then and there. I’ll open my laptop and, if it’s a podcast, I’ll pull up the very first episode they ever published and hit “play” and just see what happens. If it’s a YouTube channel, I’ll go to the channel and click on “videos” and then sort by “oldest.”

Bring out the popcorn, man! I’m telling you, this is funny stuff!

The first few episodes or videos, or—more accurately—the first few months or years of episodes or videos, are just AWFUL. They’re laughably bad. The longer the podcast or channel has been around, the funnier it is.

Seriously: try this yourself—find your favorite channel, or podcast, or show, or whatever, and go back to the very first day. Press play.

IT IS SO BAD!

It’s often hilariously, mind-numbingly bad. The lighting is awful. The mics are poorly set, or they don’t even have mics at all, so you can barely hear them. There’s wind noise. The camera shakes and wobbles. There’s background noise. There are dogs barking.

Whatever the interference is, there’s a lot of it.

AND THAT IS BEAUTIFUL.

Because look at where it got them! Look at how much progress has been made!

Seriously, pull up any major brand and check out the content they created in “the early days.” If you’re talking about a content creator that’s been around for 5, 10, or 15 years, whatever they were putting out in the early days, you probably wouldn’t even want to watch or listen to now… that’s how bad it is.

But that’s not the point. The point is there was a kernel of something great in there.

I can belabor this point forever, but you’ve seriously got to try it yourself. Find the channel or influencer or personality or show or whatever else you want and look at the EARLY DAYS.

Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, gets it. He said:

“If you aren't embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.”

This is a warning to all of us who make things: software, cereal, dog food, V/R headsets, articles, blogs, videos, whatever it is, no matter what—WE NEED TO SHIP IT NOW.

Later, it will all make sense. I promise.