Realigned Living

Ah, perfectionism! Who hasn’t started a project, and then got stuck in a rut of never finishing what you started because you can believe it can be better? While all people suffer from perfectionism from time to time - some of us more than others - it’s always irritating to encounter, especially when there is a deadline involved.

Fortunately, I’ve used a method that helps get rid of my inherent perfectionism. This method can be of a lot of value to you, if you try it out. The steps I use to curb my perfectionism are as follows:

1. Realize that perfectionism is completely in my mind - I’m the one who sets up imaginary ideals!
2. Churn out a completed project, not worrying about the quality of what I’m producing.
3. Once completed, go through and edit the project one time only.
4. Once I’m finished, I don’t touch the project again - it’s done!

1. Realize that perfectionism is your own mindset.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a phrase that everybody has heard and used at one point in their life, but we could aptly switch it around and say “A perfected, completed project is in the eye of the beholder!”

When most people have a project to complete, they do the absolute best job they can in a minimal amount of time, and then leave the project as-is. With perfectionism, your scale of what’s the absolute best you can do becomes totally out-of-whack and broken; you become confined changing minute details that don’t really matter in the long run. By realizing that perfectionism is completely your own mindset - and you’re nuts for changing everything again and again without a real reason - you can move on to what really matters: completely finishing your projects!

2. Finish your project, in its entirety, without stopping to change details.

Once it dawns on you that perfectionism is all in your mind, tackle those project to the end! Don’t worry about the end result. Devote a block of time for completion and crank out something, anything. A finished project that is only 80% of your best effort is better than a project that’s only half completed with 100% of your effort. Think of it this way: How would you like it if your favorite pop song was 100% amazing in every single way, but only half way completed? Or if you paid to read a novel that was only 50% written?

If you’re having trouble finishing the project, complete it bit by bit. For example, if you’re writing up a paper, write 2 complete sentences or 250 words at a time, then take a 2 minute break. Here’s the kicker - once you complete a small portion, do not go back and change it! The entire idea is to get an finished, tangible, completed project that’s useful to you.

3. Once the project is completed, go through it one time to change details.

Finished the project? Go through it one time and change as many details as you want. Rewrite sentences, reorder paragraphs, change up the outline, and so on; do whatever you need to do to make that project “perfect”. This is your chance to use your perfectionism!

The key words here are “one time“. If you start going back again and again to edit every little facet of your work, your perfectionism is going to kick back in full gear. Set yourself a small block of time - 30 minutes to 1 hour is applicable - and edit as much of the project that you want. However, that block of time you set? That’s as much time as you get to make changes. After time runs out, no more changes!

What happens when you limit yourself to a block of time for editing? You only edit what’s absolutely necessary. When you’re absolutely pressed for time, you won’t bother spending half an hour changing up three words in the middle of your thesis when you know you could be spending that time slightly reordering sentences to make the paper sound more cohesive. Try this method out - it works wonders.

4. Finished editing? Do not go back to edit again! Your project is fully done.

Finished revising your project? Consider it done - don’t touch it again. Don’t edit, revise, change, delete, trash, or do any action to it that has the potential for project destruction. You’re done with the project!

Projects don’t have to be a victim of your perfectionism! By taking hold of your perfectionism and only using it when needed - when you’re editing those projects - you can use it wisely. You’ll have completed, near perfect projects, all while keeping your sanity.

So you’ve read my article on how to improve your creativity, you’ve identified people that you want to mimic, and you’ve set aside a block of time every day for improving your creativity. Wonderful!

But there’s one slight problem - you’re not sure of any ideas for your projects…

Creativity is super important, but if you don’t have some sort of idea to use your creativity with, your creativity is completely and utterly worthless. The container that you use to express your creativity with - such as composing a short story, writing a poem, composing a pop song, or drawing with chalk on the sidewalk - stay the same, but you need a constant flow of fresh, new ideas to keep pushing your creativity boundary. But… how do you get ideas? Are you idea-less?

Part of being creative is also being observant. In order to become a highly creative individual, you have to pay attention to the world. There are always ideas floating around you, waiting to be snatched up and used - you just have to find them!

The following lists are some ways to find ideas for different tasks. See if you can apply one of these ways next time you need some interesting ideas:

The Writers

• Cell phone conversations. People always talk on their cellphones (everywhere!) - have you ever paid attention to what they’re actually saying? Cell phone stories you can hear range from being juicy, to hilarious, to romantic. (Don’t feel like it’s eavesdropping if they’re talking loud enough for you to hear! :P)
• Restaurant conversations. Sure, sometimes it’s annoyingly loud in restaurants, and you can’t hear a thing! But sometimes you’ll pick up on an interesting conversation or two that you can mold into a short story.
• Newspaper and magazine headlines. You don’t have to read the entire story. But what if you found a clever headline, and created your own unique story to go along with it?
• Pictures. Why not create a poem for a picture you find, describing events that lead up to what the picture is portraying?

The Musicians

• Obscure songs. Billboard magazine charts the most popular songs in America, going back all the way to the 1950s. Obviously, some of these songs still are massively popular today… but what about the lesser known ones from 20 years ago? 30 years ago? Would it be possible to take an old song, give it a new twist, and write it in the style of a current artist?
• Old recordings. If you play a musical instrument, dig up some of those old recordings and listen to how those artist phrased musical lines, played the dynamics, and the like. Better yet, go to some college recitals and hear unknown musicians play your choice instrument. What do you like about their style you can take with you?

The Artists

• MySpace and art websites. Need an idea for a picture theme, a photography theme, or a different style to try out? Browse around MySpace and the art gallery websites online. Quite often, people get in a creative loop by only looking at the “famous” pieces of artwork, photography, and the like - why not dig around and find some obscure piece of work that you can emulate?

The Bloggers

• Forums. If you are persistent with Google enough, there are quality forums out there for any topic under the sun. What kind of questions are asked on those forums? What kinds of problems are people facing, or what do they want to know more information about? Use this to your advantage - answer their questions in a post, and then link to them!
• What are other bloggers typing about? How can you give an interesting twist to what somebody else is saying, or present it in a new, fascinating light? I recently did this with my “Morning Routines” post - Steve Pavlina did a wonderful post on setting up routines, but I felt it wasn’t complete enough. I added more to it based on my own ideas and experiences, and set it up for a new audience. What topics can you do this to?
• New horizons. There’s always a new side of topics that people haven’t discussed yet - from music, to literature, to business, to anything you can think of. Do you know of a topic that would fit into your blog that nobody else wrote about yet? If it’s novel enough, sites might link to it and social bookmarking sites might pick up on it.

Use these lists as a diving board. Try to come up with 10 tasks, ways, and places that you can come up with creative ideas, and then out your list! Paying attention to the world to come up with creative ideas is a lot easier than trying to brainstorm out a list yourself in a dark, damp room - it prevents thinking in a loop, and always gives you new, exciting ideas to try out.