Perfect is the enemy of done
đ Thu 4 December 2025 at 07:00 GMT
âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ was meant to be the silver bullet that would vanquish perfectionism and procrastination – the twin arch-enemies of productivity.
So why have I procrastinated for 5 months on writing my next research paper, when I already know that âPerfection is the enemy of doneâ?
Itâs cleverâŚ
âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ – often attributed to Voltaire – has been rehashed in the modern age as a personal effectiveness slogan. It says that people aim for the perfect. As a result, the project is never done. So the slogan urges you to get the job done, rather than spending years with the project incomplete, waiting for it to become perfect.
On the face of it, âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ is reasonable. It is better to deliver something partially perfect (i.e. done) rather than never delivering, because perfection never comes, and your efforts are ultimately wasted, despite your noble and lofty aims.
“Perfect is the enemy of done” is connected to the Pareto principle (the 80/20 rule) which states that 80% of the result comes from 20% of the work. This means that we should focus on the most impactful 20% of work, beyond which thereâs a law of diminishing returns.
⌠and beautiful
âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ is also a really neat and memorable statement. It is rhetorically rich, with 5 rhetorical devices tightly packaged into just 6 words:
- Perfect <-> done are opposites.
- Each of perfect, done, and enemy are metaphors.
- There is a symmetry caused by the reversal of perfect and done, which pivot around âis the enemy ofâ.
The statement is both conceptually clever and rhetorically dense which contributes to its appeal.
HoweverâŚ
The problem is that we never follow âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ, and with good reason, too.
- What if a doctor told their patients that they’ll receive only partial treatments because itâs better for the treatment to be done, than be perfect. Would the patients be impressed with their doctor having embraced the âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ philosophy?
- How about if I submitted my research paper to a journal and wrote in my covering letter, âLook, itâs done but not perfect and that’s OK, just publish it.â It would be an immediate desk rejection.
- If you were travelling to meet someone, and 80% of the way into the journey you called them up and said youâre going to stop there, because 80% of the way is better than 100% of the way? Itâs a ridiculous proposition, right!.
Often in reality, âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ cannot be applied because it does not come with a way to operationalise it: the metaphors perfect, done and enemy are completely undefined. The slogan persists not because it works, but because it’s intellectually and rhetorically satisfying.
To be fair, the modern use of the slogan originated in the context of IT startups where shipping an imperfect product, then releasing iterative updates was a way of establishing a revenue stream and early adoption of the product. Somewhere along the way it was generalised as the life hack it never intended to be.
The solution is easy
The way to operationalise âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ is to define what you mean by perfect, done, and enemy.
- Describe exactly what perfect looks like.
- Describe exactly what done – the minimum viable product (MVP) – looks like. The MVP is the very basic and essential product that gets the job done.
- Describe exactly the consequences if you donât ship the MVP because youâre waiting for the perfect – this is the enemy.
Two things immediately happen when when we start to articulate these terms precisely.
Firstly, we realise how we could never implement âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ without being clear what these metaphors stand for.
Secondly, identifying the gap between MVP and the perfect often illuminates the way forward.
- In medicine, there is often only a very small gap between the MVP and the perfect. Unless youâre in a resource-poor environment, the treatment itself needs to be administered in full. However, what you could sacrifice are things like bedside manner and similar niceties. In fact, this is exactly the planning for major and mass-casualty incidents.
The difference between the patientâs and the doctorâs perception of what is MVP, and what is perfect, is often the source of complaints. We often find that because the MVP has been delivered, the complaint does not meet the threshold for a clinical negligence claim.
- As for my research paper – can I submit the MVP, and describe some imperfections as limitations or âSuggestions for further workâ?
- When youâre due to meet someone at a particular place, the MVP and the perfect are the same. You must redefine the meeting point rather than expecting the MVP to be easier to attain than the perfect.
A final thought
âPerfect is the enemy of doneâ premises a conflict which does not exist. It forces us to take sides: do we choose done, or perfect? It feels wrong to not seek the perfect, but the done is more attainable.
But done and perfect aren’t opposites – they’re stages in a sequence. Done is simply the first viable version on the path toward perfect.
To remove the false dichotomy of done versus perfect, I re-state the slogan as “Done is the start of perfect” which places them on a scale of incremental tiers.
For medicine, it ensures you deliver the essential treatment, while offering as many of the extras as possible. For my research paper, it gets my data out into the world so that others can take my work forward. If we’re meeting, lets meet at a place convenient for both of us, then we can take it from there.
Clearly defining the initial MVP and the subsequent “perfect” helps us build a graduated, nuanced and tailored response to a challenge, in a way that the original paradigm could never do. “Done is the start of perfect” has the potential to be a more powerful productivity mindset. The moment you define your MVP, the paralysis breaks.
And that’s A Deeper Thought.
Now… where did I put that Excel file with all my data? Time for me to start MVP-ising it!
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