Hey, this is the Daily Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today, I wanna talk about how perfectionism will kill you!
Ok, so it's the end of the week, I've got several things done this week, a lot of the
stuff on my to-do list, but there's one major one that I did not get done, and I'm kinda
disappointed in myself.
Not because I didn't have time to get it done, because I did have the time, it's just that
it's because I became a perfectionist in it.
A lot of the time I've talked to other app developers, I've talked to people all over
the place and we become perfectionists at things, which is the reason that we don't
start things or continue things, or we'll start things but we'll never finish because
we become perfectionists.
And I talked about this when I started out doing app development.
My first app, which I started coding on my own, I never finished and I never got it to
go live because there was always one little thing I could do.
One little thing I could add.
"Hmm, I don't like the way that works", and there was no hard-set deadline to get done,
which is the case for lots of things.
We procrastinate or we say perfectionism is a way of procrastination, especially with
apps, one of the things I realised early on was that you don't become good at doing it
until you get something to go live.That's when you start to learn!
Going live and having feedback from users is a major part of the process!
You can't become an expert before you release the app, that's kind of part of it.
So you just have to get something done and get it out the door, and it's something that
we struggle with all the time.
The same with everything - youtube videos, if you're gonna do anything creative, you
have that sense that I wanna be a perfectionist.
So basically what the task was, was to create a video ad for LinkedIn.
So it's nothing that you would ever see, not unless you own a construction company!
So the construction industry seems to be one of our major demographics with clients so
I thought we'll do some ads for LinkedIn, get some people in and try that out.
It's just something that I like to do!
So, what I should do is just turn the camera on and press record, right?!
I know, from doing these youtube videos, that's all you have to do!
Just turn the camera on, maybe write a little script or something if I wanted to be really
formal about it, turn the camera on and press record.
BUT, that's not what I was doing!
I was going "oh, you know what?
I think I wanna have some stock footage over here, I wanna have this over here, I wanna
have this over here", and the next thing you know, the entire week is gone and I haven't
done any of those.
It's not like I haven't put the time in.
I put the time in, but I don't have a result, because my deadline was soft.
I had a soft deadline.
I didn't have that hard deadline like 'by the end of the week this thing has to go live,
we have to get this out there, we have to start getting feedback as we can always change
it later'.
I talked before about how I've had friends who are developers who say "yeah, I'm working
on this app, it should be done in the next 6-9 months, it's for a windows phone", it
was for a windows phone at the time which I thought was funny.
"Its for a windows phone, it will be 6-9 months and we'll get it out there", and he was making
it perfect.
Like everything, the app was totally air handled all over the place, get it all on the app
store and there's lots of things that go out there that just are not ready for...I mean
there's lots of things that go out there that they thought nothing about marketing.
They don't know whether or not the markets going to accept it, if there's gonna be a
need for it, the whole branding side of things they haven't even thought about, because you're
not gonna know about that until after you go live.
And I've always been, you know, get something out there, follow the 80 20 rule, get something
that is good enough to go live.
If there's a few issues here and there, definitely take care of it, take care of everything you
can because you're not gonna spot every bug before you get it on all those different types
of android phones, all those different types of iOS phones, you're just not gonna know
until you actually get it out there on the app store.
Start looking at the analytics, start seeing how people use it, start getting the feedback
from them.
'This is confusing', 'I don't like this', 'I don't like this icon', or whatever.
At that point then you know, but it's just that cold feet.
So a lot of people have that trouble with doing apps and I had that trouble with apps
going forward.
I didn't wanna go live because 'it's just not good enough yet', or I'll go right back
to the point where I'm ready to go live and I'll have another idea.
'I kinda wanna add another thing', I've had this problem with clients too.
They're just like "you think this is really gonna work?
I think we should add another thing", it's like no, we need to go live.
We don't know whats gonna work, we need to put something live.
We have assumptions and we need to test these assumptions out.
It's always hard.
Same doing youtube videos.
My first videos were very much like ' I have to be a perfectionist'. in fact, the first
video I ever did, I wrote out a script, I had a little teleprompter thing, and it was
just terrible, I never even released it because it was really really bad.
Perfectionism - I just think perfectionism holds you back.
Unless you have, like,that's your job.
My job this week, I only had that one thing to do and I had limitless time.
I didn't have family things to do, I didn't have other things to do, I didn't have apps
to take care of, I didn't have clients to talk to.
If I could just say "my whole goal this week is to make the perfect LinkedIn video ad",
then maybe, but I think even then I would've found reasons to procrastinate by becoming
a perfectionist.
So I guess my message today, and I know I've probably talked about this before sometime
in the last 300 and 60 something videos, that perfectionism will kill you.
So anyway, let me know what you guys think.
I've heard other people say other things, "Eric, I'm from academia, it has to be perfect
before you release it."
Before you publish it, it has to be perfect.
There's no going back.
But with apps, with a lot of things, you can always redo it.
If I put an ad on LinkedIn and it tanks, I can do another ad!
It's not like I'm releasing something, it doesn't go to the presses and they print 10,000
versions and then there's nothing I can do about it!
So, we're in the software industry, we work with soft things that are fungible and we
can change them.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think, that's it for today, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow!