They tell me that “done is better than perfect”, and I think it’s over-hyped. Starting is more important.

“Done is better than perfect” – It’s supposed to anesthetise my ego, to free me from the attachments I have to the work. If I’m worried about how the work will be perceived, about how I’ll be judged, then I might never ship the work, and then I’ll have no chance at moving forward, no chance at making things better.

But what if getting it done isn’t the hardest part, and if it isn’t, what if we focused on the hardest part instead?

When you have to push a car 100m to the gas station, assuming a flat road, the last meter isn’t the hardest part. The last 10 meters isn’t the hardest part. The hardest part is getting it going. Pushing it from standstill to the point where it’s momentum almost carries across the line by itself. The hardest part is starting.

In Zero to One, Peter Thiel argues that going from 0 to 1 is an infinite improvement; from 1 to 2 is a 100% improvement, from 2 to 3 is a 50% improvement and so on. Going from 99 to 100, that’s a 1% improvement.

It’s probably true that in many situations “done is better than perfect” and the part we need to add is “and starting is the most important”.

Of course there is the danger of having many ‘started’ projects and few ‘done’ projects. So we’d be wise not to start too many concurrently. Anecdotally, I’ve found 1 to 3 new projects at a time to be the limit. Even at 3 I know I’m asking for trouble.

Another thing we may want to do is build in something to ensure momentum after the start has happened. One of the best ways that I’ve found to do this is community. If two of you are pushing the car, the likelihood of either one of you stopping before you reach the goal goes way down. It just seems we’re way more likely to break a promise to ourself than we are to break a promise to someone else. I’m not making a comment on how we should feel about that, just observing that it seems to be the case and that we can make it work for us instead of against us.

So, done is better than perfect, and starting is the most important part, and doing it with others really increases our odds of getting to done.