October 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Perfectionism can drive excellence — but it can also stall progress, create stress, and keep teams stuck. In this episode, we explore the “pencils down” metaphor, helping you recognize when good enough is actually brilliant. We discuss the roots and benefits of perfectionism, the pitfalls of over-editing and micromanagement, and how leaders can model healthy standards. Packed with practical strategies for releasing control, encouraging iteration, and knowing when to move on, this episode is a guide for anyone ready to break free from perfectionism without sacrificing quality.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:05):
Indra. Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome
you to the messy middle matters,where my friends and I explore
all the twists, turns andchallenges that arise in the
messy middle of work. Hieveryone. Today. We're talking
about one of the reasons thatpeople in teams struggle to
deliver. It's their commitmentto perfection. It's the fact
that they get stuck on makingsure that it's just right. And
(00:29):
when they do that, sometimesthey lose the forest for the
trees, so to speak. You know,while perfectionism can drive
excellence, it can also stallyour progress. Like one of the
stories that comes to mind whenI think about this is I was
supporting a team, and we wereworking on some work for the
client, and the lead was like,No, we need to get this right.
(00:51):
We need to get that right. And I10 turned to them, and I said,
you know, Vincent, I'm like, Itotally love that you are so
committed to making sure thatthis is right for this client
for all these reasons, until wefinish this particular project,
we can't move on to the nextone. So is this good enough? And
he said, Oh, okay, when youframe it that way. So today
(01:13):
we're going to be talking about,you know, helping people know
when it's the right time to puttheir pencils down, so to speak,
and when they should keep on,holding on onto them and working
that solution. So today,Amanda's joining me, and I know
you got a lot of good stuff tosay about this. You know, as
part of your craft, you helppeople keep their hold onto
(01:34):
their pencils or put them downall the time. So first and
foremost, how are you today,Amanda,
Amanda Jane Lee (01:38):
I'm good. So this conversation is close to my
heart, because, of course, itis. I think of myself as a
recovering perfectionist. It'shard when you hold yourself to
such high standards, right? Butit's knowing the difference
between excellence andperfection and knowing when to
(01:58):
stop
Indra Klavins (02:00):
100% I went by a similar label for a long time
when I was trying to let go ofmy perfectionist tendencies. I
called myself a failedperfectionist, and then people
would look at me like, oddly,I'm like, I'm just, I'm
acknowledging the fact that Ihave a hard time. And by saying
it out loud, fail perfectionist,it helps me let it go. Yeah, let
it go, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (02:19):
Putting it out in the universe helps, helps
you, like, internalize it,externalize it, and just, like,
just let it
Indra Klavins (02:26):
go, detach, detach. Because, like, the
reality of it is, if we'rethinking about, you know,
growing up in an Americanschool, I went to public school,
I think it's not all thatdifferent in private school,
Amanda, I think you're a publicschool kid too. Yeah, private
and public?
Amanda Jane Lee (02:42):
Yeah, I went to private school from kindergarten
to eighth grade in public schoolafter that.
Indra Klavins (02:48):
Okay, so you can check me on some of this stuff,
but like in I think that in bothof those environments, if we're
talking about primary schools,even we can get into
universities on this. But let'sstick with the one experience I
think everyone has had is inprimary schools and in high
school, getting things perfectwas so encouraged, like you got
the perfect score. You wanted toget the perfect answer. You
(03:09):
wanted your penmanship to beperfect. You needed to, you
know, factor that out in thatmath equation, perfectly, your
geometry, your your proof ingeometry had to be perfect,
whether you know your pitch onthat softball team that was
overhand, it means underhand.Sorry, I I'm a very visual
thinker, for those of youlistening, and I gestured the
(03:30):
wrong way, but I'm gonna let goof my perfectionism. Getting
that pitch perfect, it's hard,you know, like all those things
you can imagine in yourextracurriculars like that, is
so honed in, in the way that weget graded at school. Oh, yeah,
totally.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:47):
And add growing up in an Asian household to all
of that, and it's like, Hey, Igot an A. Well, why not an A?
Indra Klavins (03:57):
Plus. It's so true, like these standards that
get created, like, they put youinto a box. We're not going to
discuss why those boxes exist,because that's a whole nother
conversation I'm happy to have,but we don't have the time for
it. But they put you into theseboxes. And not only do they put
(04:18):
you into a box, they put yourbrain into a box too, of like,
and getting out of that boxseems to only have one way out,
which is why I got it perfect,and now I can move on, right?
And so, like, today, we'll talkabout, like, you know, the
pencils down metaphor came froma lovely story. I'm going to
share it because I want everyoneto have access to the story when
(04:39):
they're thinking about andcommunicating with their team.
So the story that I heard wasabout somebody going to back to
school night, and there were twokindergarten classes, and the
person walking past thatkindergarten classes noticed
that one of the kindergartenclassrooms had art that looked
like you would see fromkindergarteners, you know, and
all of his school spectacles.Glory with all the colors and
(05:01):
all the everything. And in theother classroom, the artwork
still was colorful, but it wasso much more beautiful. And so
the person passing by said tothe teacher, oh my goodness,
you're you. You've just got sucha gifted class. They're such
great artists. Like, how didthat happen? She goes, I just
(05:23):
know when to take their pencilsaway from them. Because in that
scenario, they weren'toverworking their work and
continuing to color. They justlike the children didn't
recognize, and a lot of us don'trecognize when is good enough.
Good enough, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (05:39):
Yeah, the metaphor that comes to my mind
because I'm still on my potteryjourney. I was just at the
studio yesterday, and I madethis beautiful bowl. I was so
proud of it. I have this, thisvideo of it. It's great. And I
messed with it too much. I waslike, oh, like, this isn't
great. This isn't perfect. Itweaked, I tweaked. And like, I
(06:01):
I didn't know at that moment,like, I had a lapse in judgment,
and I didn't know when to put myso called pencils down
Indra Klavins (06:09):
it. But it's so true, like you think of, like
from pop culture, like inProject Runway, you overwork
that dress, or in in Top Chef,like, oh, you had too many
ideas. You needed to edit,right. Like, right? You needed
to edit. There's too manygarnishes here. Flavors are
money, right? It becomes justlike those pictures in that
(06:30):
classroom. Things become muddywhen you don't know when to put
your pencils down. Like,literally, figuratively,
metaphorically, they just getmuddy. So let's talk about it.
Let's talk about it. I thinkthat we are I'm thinking we're
going to give I suspect we'regoing to go through this in two
different angles, like one,we've touched a little bit on
both of them. Like, how do youas a practitioner, no matter
(06:53):
what your craft is, no matterwhat career stage you're at, how
do you know when to put yourpencils down, or what tools and
tricks can you use to help youidentify when you should put
your pencils down? And then it'salso for your team members, like
whether you're in a leadershipcapacity or program management
capacity, or you're a peerlooking at your friend being
like, dude, put your pencil downand it's good enough. Which it
(07:19):
can be good enough can be such ait can be such a derogatory it
can or, like, like, a negativeconnotation, like, oh, that's
just good enough. Like, let'sjust, that's passable. But what
people don't realize, and somepeople will do that like,
they're like, Oh, it's goodenough. I'll take it all, like,
let's just move on. Like, butwhat people don't realize, in a
world that's trained us to beperfectionists, are good enough,
(07:42):
and I'm putting that in airquotes, is often someone else's
A plus work, especially ifyou're an overachiever, like so
aiming for good enough issometimes really exceptional,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:54):
right? Your your 80% is someone's 120%
Indra Klavins (07:58):
like, blows it out of the water. So true. And I
saw an article on this recently.It was relative to, like the
design world. Somebody post, Ithink I posted on LinkedIn,
somebody was saying, is that,you know, most people are gonna
the people who are receivingyour work, or the recipients, or
whether they're the businessside or the end user, they're
not going to understand half ofthe stuff that you put into it
(08:21):
like you're Are you doing it foryou? Are you doing it for what
will meet their needs and theirexpectations of excellence,
right? Right? So understandingthat difference, which is where,
you know, I think that's where,that's where you get into
feedback. That's where you getinto feedback, and having that
external, non emotional person,no matter how much we like to
(08:41):
pretend like we don't haveemotional have emotions at work,
we do having that person give anobjective perspective on, like,
hey, is this good enough foryou? Is this good enough to go
live?
Amanda Jane Lee (08:52):
Right? Like, how does this land? Right? Like,
let me put this out in into theworld, yeah. How do you think
it'll land for, you know, forthis audience, for you know, for
this meeting, what, whatever theparameters are,
Indra Klavins (09:04):
yeah, and that could be something so formal as
usability testing, right? Like,that's where you figure out,
like, what's good enough? Like,your your MVP, your minimum
viable product, your minimumdesirable product, whatever the
latest acronym of the moment is,right, where you, where you
might go through that formalprocess to figure out what's
enough. You might go throughsome executive review, where
(09:25):
executives decide what's goodenough, right? You know, there
is that, or you find yourleader, you find your peer, you
find your partner to help youdefine, like, what is good
enough?
Amanda Jane Lee (09:37):
Yeah, I think that's a really it's a really
helpful framing, right of liketaking a step back and defining
what good enough is and aligningon what good enough is, is so
helpful,
Indra Klavins (09:53):
you know, this is what's coming to mind and is
acceptance criteria. So forfolks not. Familiar with
acceptance criteria. So withinthe agile framework for project,
project, program management,getting stuff done. Management,
when you before you initiatework, not only you do define
(10:14):
what you're creating, you definethe parameters that will say
that this is, it's a definitionof Done. So is it done when the
code is done? Is it done whenthat action can be triggered by
that thing? Is it done whenyou've applied let's take it
from a design perspective. Is itdone when I draw the thing and
(10:35):
everything is laid out in theright place? Or is it done when
I've actually applied the visuallanguage to it, made sure the
brand colors align and all that.Like defining that before you
start work helps, because atthat moment in time, you're not
emotionally attached to thething you're doing, you're not
as you're not as emotionallyattached. You know, you're a
(10:55):
click away for that, right? Ithelps to define that before you
start your work, and then youcan always gut check yourself
against that. So I love the factthat you you brought that one
in. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (11:05):
What's top of mind for me is presentation
decks, right? Presentationdecks, we all love a deck, and I
think being honest with yourselfand being upfront before you
even start. What is the purposeof this, right? Is it to
communicate clearly to anexecutive team what's going on?
(11:27):
Or is it to, you know, go intoall of the details about, what,
about what's going on with thisproject, you know, all all the
little nuances, right? Likeknowing your audience, knowing
what your goals are, is reallyimportant and helpful to to
(11:48):
knowing when to stop,
Indra Klavins (11:50):
yeah, and as you're talking about decks, what
came to mind is, so I've spentan awful lot of time with design
teams and where the world thedesign teams would love most
design teams are many, maybe,let's say many, many designers,
many design teams would love tolive in is a world where
(12:11):
everything is pixel perfect,right, like and literally down
to the literal pixel. And whythat came to mind? Because you
said Dex and, like, always,like, the alignment that this,
the fonts I can get the fonts,the graphics, I can get obsessed
over this stuff too. So, I mean,I know, sometimes I say, like,
oh, the fonts. People getobsessed. I can get obsessed
(12:32):
about the fonts too. Let's bereal. But you know, part of this
is also when not to let go ofthat, right? Sometimes that is
so important, right? Like, it'sbecause sometimes pixels do
matter, sometimes, like thatalignment, if, like, for
example. So I spent a lot oftime in financial services, and
there we're working with a lotof tables of data. A lot of that
(12:56):
is money or numbers to multipledecibel decimal points that are
a lot that you know can go out.The numbers that we get back
from our databases can have beto the 10th, the 100th to the
1,000th. They can go manyminutes, up to six decimal
places, depending on the number,sometimes on a row level. And
(13:17):
what can be important is thatyour decimal aligned, so someone
can scan that table right? Solike everything, you can see
everything to the left of thedecimal, you can see everything
to the right of the decimal, andit all lines up, and the user
can read that. Now somebodymight say, Oh, I'm just going to
make it right aligned. It's somuch easier. And I know, I know,
technically they're all similarin the level of effort, but
(13:40):
somebody might have just bydefault, Gone with the default
alignment. And let's say thatit's in that particular code
framework, it's all rightaligned to everything. And there
it might be worth going to thatperfection level to get that
decimal alignment, because, youknow that's that important to
the user. So like, there is thetime. Like you shouldn't when
(14:01):
somebody says it's good enough,you should really ask, like, is
it good enough? Becausesometimes it really will matter
and it can make or breaksomething. Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (14:10):
think that's a really great point of about
understanding the user, right?Yeah, understanding, you know,
the purpose and who is consumingthis thing that you're working
on, right? Because, like, goingback to decks, right is this, is
this deck for, you know, a morecasual, internal audience, or is
(14:32):
this deck for a prospectiveclient where, you know, first
impressions matter and like itneeds to look beautiful?
Indra Klavins (14:41):
Or am I polishing this deck for this internal
user? Because I know that forthem, they will get distracted
by the font and the color andthen this and that and the other
thing, because there are thosepeople, especially if I'm
thinking about your CMOS of theworld, right, if I'm presenting
them using like taking the timeto polish that deck and spend.
Those extra hours to make surethat all the slides aligned to a
(15:03):
certain template can beworthwhile. Or am I polishing
the deck? Because, you know,I've created so many decks for
CMO, and I really value that asmy craft, but it may not make
sense in this scenario. Is itfor me? Am I polishing the deck
for me, because it'll make mefeel good about my work where,
(15:23):
and there's a time and a placefor that, or am I making it
truly for that? End recipient,end recipient of whatever I'm
creating.
Amanda Jane Lee (15:31):
Yeah, I think, you know, the the definition of
good enough is, you know, partof that definition is, is this
going to meet the audience'sneeds, or, like, the end user's
needs, or am I just doing thisfor, you know, my own internal
critic 100%
Indra Klavins (15:50):
and like, let's go to some examples that are not
so, like visual like, if I'mthinking about, like, code
handoffs between softwareengineering teams. And, I mean,
I could go into copy examplesand also, but I'll go with the
worlds I'm most familiar with.If I'm doing code handoff to
another software engineer, youknow, for software engineer a, I
may not need to annotate mycode, because they know what's
(16:11):
going on, and I know thatthey're going to annotate both
mine and their code when theywhen they do things. But for
software Am I handing off tosoftware engineer B? I know that
they're overseas, they haven'tbeen in the business
discussions, and they might lookat this particular line of code
and be like, What did you do,and why did you do it that way,
taking the time to have perfectannotations so they understand
(16:32):
why this decision, which is nonstandard, was made, and they can
just move on and do their thinglike, that's Those are two
different audiences, sounderstanding the contextual
definition of perfection isreally like or non perfection or
good actually, contextualdefinition of good enough is
really important. Yeah, you saidcopy. And what popped into my
(16:54):
head was,
Amanda Jane Lee (16:56):
I don't know if this has happened to you, but
like, have you? Have you everspent, like, more time than you
should have writing an email foryou know, say an executive, and
you send it off and they respondwith thanks sent for my phone.
Indra Klavins (17:14):
It's so funny, like, okay, so a bunch of things
popped into my mind as you'retelling the story. One, so when
Amanda and I used to worktogether like I was when there
was a complex scenario, and Iwanted to make sure that there
was alignment. So I would bringthe full TPM team, technical
program management team togetherand be like, let's I'm going to
craft the email. I want you allto have eyes on it. Just make
(17:34):
sure that I'm not missinganything and that we can all
stand behind this, because we'reall going to have to support it.
We Amanda was known as. So I waslike, oh, write it through
Grammarly. And then we're like,Amanda Lee was our Grammarly
there, because you are so goodat this. So that's one thing
that came to mind, no, it wasgreat. It was great. And the
(17:57):
other thing that came to mind,and this helps me, it helps me
get unstuck when I'm writinglike not the topic of this
conversation, but it also helpsme get rid of my perfection
thing. I use GPT a lot.Sometimes what I'll use GPT is
to, like to kick start mywriting so I don't get obsessed
over everything or or I mightwrite it myself and then send it
(18:20):
to GPT and say, What's yourimpression of this piece of
work? It? Yes, it's a sycophant.Yes, it will tell me, my life is
wonderful. But sometimes they'llbe like, Hey, someone else wrote
this email. What's yourimpression of it? Yeah. Is this
appropriate for, you know, theCEO of a startup at or do you
think that there's a better wayto write this? That's another
way of using technology to helpme let my letting go, muscle go
(18:45):
and without shape with like theonly person who knows I asked
that gut check is me and theGPT. And the GPT never remembers
half of what it remember of whatI told it anyway. So, yeah, I
think
Amanda Jane Lee (18:58):
practicing putting yourself in someone
else's shoes, right? Is is ahelpful exercise, too, not not
putting yourself and your maybeperfectionist or recovering
perfectionist self into theshoes of the someone receiving
this email, but putting yourselfinto actually that person's
(19:19):
shoes that you know that that Clevel executive Re is going to
read this on on their iPhone? Isthis good enough? Yeah, I think
so it does. It say what it needsto say. It doesn't need to be
perfect fonts, bolded,highlighted, you know what
formatted in the most perfectway, like I don't need to spend
(19:42):
more time agonizing over this. Ican use this time and energy and
effort to do something elsethat's more productive,
Indra Klavins (19:50):
right? And then knowing when is it time to
assemble TPMS, let's write thisemail together, right? Like or
even asking, Hey, I pulled youall together because I think
it's important. And for all ofus be aligned. Do you guys
agree, or am I overthinkingthis? Right? Great way to start
the conversation, because theny'all wouldn't have been by
starting, I think I started theconversations every once in a
(20:11):
while, like that. Like, itwouldn't be you guys could say
to me, like, Indra, you'reoverthinking this. I got better
use for my time. Like, great.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:18):
Fantastic, right? This looks This looks
great. Ship it, right?
Indra Klavins (20:23):
Or you'd been like, Oh, you haven't thought
about this enough. There's this,this, this, this, and this,
like, I wasn't, well, thatwouldn't be perfectionist
enough. But like, sometimesyou're not. Sometimes there will
be the moments where you'retired, where you're exhausted,
you're sick and tired of workingon this. Like, it's version
seven, version 12, version 31,of this deck. Like, like, decks
(20:46):
can be really tough, andsometimes it's like, you know,
like, you will, you will maybeair on the other side be like,
can I just, can I just ship it?Can I just ship it? Like, right?
I need the guns done.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:56):
Like, does it communicate? What it needs to
communicate? Or, like, do I do?I actually, really need to spend
more time polishing this? Yeah,and I
Indra Klavins (21:05):
think that the last place where we, I think we
can go, where I'd like to go, isa little bit when the person
asking you for the thing isn'tis stuck in their perfectionism.
This might be the toughestbecause I had a bus, I am very
I'm very consistent at how Iformat my spreadsheet that comes
(21:28):
from a and everyone canrecognize my spreadsheet. So,
like, Oh, I could tell youcreated that one. I'm like, I
know, like, I've got a signatureI got that's on brand for me,
another episode, but I've got, Igot a branding on how I design
my spreadsheets that came fromworking underneath the bus. She
wasn't the greatest, but she wasa perfectionist when it came to
spreadsheet. She had a certainway that she expected things.
(21:49):
And you know, it's worked forme, even though I didn't care
for her in general, this hasworked for me like but there are
those leaders that will be like,No, you didn't do data. It needs
to be. Like, you chose, youchose the wrong font, you chose
the wrong alignment, you chosethe wrong I get. I'm grabbing
onto easy visuals, since we arean audio podcast. But like, you
(22:12):
know, there are those people whojust can't let it go, unless
it's like, pixel perfect, orcode perfect, or like zero
defect free, or, you know, like,just perfectly aligned.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:23):
Yeah, I think it's worth noting that when say
you are that person, right, I'mnot, I'm not accusing anyone of
being that person, but say youare that person, you can say
that I'm that person, becauseeveryone knows that. No, but
like, say you are that personwho, like, needs, everything,
perfect. Who needs, who needsthe deck that someone else is
(22:44):
creating? For me to have theperfect font, to have the
perfect alignment, to have this,that or the other, or, like, you
know, whatever document it is,you know, going in there. And
because I've experienced this onthe other end of just having
someone line by line, commentafter comment, and it just
becomes
Indra Klavins (23:03):
nit picky. It feels micro managing and
nitpicky.
Amanda Jane Lee (23:07):
Yeah, yes. It feels micromanaging and nit
picky. And you know it therecomes a point where the
nitpicking, the comments, thefeedback, isn't actually making
it better, no, but that behavioris sending the message that your
work isn't good enough.
Indra Klavins (23:29):
And it's, it's, it's undermining trust.
Unknown (23:33):
Yeah, yeah, those are the that's, that's, I think so,
if you are a leader
Indra Klavins (23:41):
who is for whatever baggage reasons. In
this scenario where you're theone who's constantly asking for
perfect, I think it's worthasking why it's. I think it's
worth asking why it could be. Itcould be because the person
above them, etc, etc, and it'slike cascading down, yeah, but
the question is
Amanda Jane Lee (24:01):
why. The question is why, and if, if you
don't have a compelling answeras to why, let's, let's figure
out how not to be that
Indra Klavins (24:12):
way. I think it's easier said than done.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:15):
Oh, recovering perfectionist here it is easier
said than done. But I think justrealizing, acknowledging that
there is an impact
Indra Klavins (24:23):
to that. Yeah, and I think that whether you're
managing up, trying to getsomebody to manage their to
adjust their behavior, or you'remanaging down and trying to
mitigate your behavior fromcascading down right like in
either case, leadership has aperfection. I think in both
(24:44):
scenarios, it's simple. Is notalways easy, right? It's about,
I think it's again, it's thosesmall changes, like, what's the
one thing that I can do? Can Ilet go of the critique? One
round? Early. Here, right? Or ifyou're managing up, can I get
(25:05):
them to let go of the theformatting on this one specific
slide when I because I explainedto them that getting this one
slide aligned is going to takeeight hours of work, and that's
going to keep the person frombeing able to do these 10 other
slides that are out there. Like,what is that one? Seemingly
(25:28):
small, but it's the beginning,right? Like, you know, it's with
everything. A lot of so manythings in life start with these
small, little, micro things,right?
Amanda Jane Lee (25:38):
Yeah, finding what, what feels more low stakes
than everything else? And andseeing if you can let that go,
yeah, and then just seeing howyou
Indra Klavins (25:50):
feel, yeah. And then, like, I think that the I'm
looking at some of our notes aswe're prepping for the
conversation, you know, like,what is it? The quote that came
up through that was done isbetter than perfect. And
sometimes good is brilliant. Sothat's one, but the other one I
got this. I have a I have a thedaily calendar from Seth Godin
(26:11):
for this year. And one of therecent um items I collect, the
ones that are resonant or I knowthat are going to be a topic. So
this one says from Seth Godin,shipping our work is a chance to
be seen, to learn, to own it andto do better next time. So I
love that framing, because youknow, if I'm trying to let go or
(26:33):
I'm trying to encourage someoneelse to let go, whether it's a
person, a beloved above me orbelow me, let's just get it done
and we'll do better next time,because that continuous
improvement mindset, it's like,I'm not saying that Perfection
isn't what we strive for. I'msaying maybe we won't get it the
reality is, you'll never get itperfect, if we're honest. But
(26:55):
like, maybe we won't get itperfect this time. Maybe we'll
get it perfect next time.
Amanda Jane Lee (27:00):
Yeah, it's the whole it's, you know, the
iteration and the continuousimprovement and progress over
perfection. Progress overperfect.
Indra Klavins (27:09):
Yeah, there's another quote, every time, every
time it's, it's every day alittle bit better. Every day a
little bit better. And as longas you're working with human
beings, I don't think there isreally, truly a perfection. It's
just the best that we could dotoday. Yeah? Amanda, thank you
(27:31):
for joining me on this one. Iknow this is a tough one for
both of us to talk aboutsometimes. Or like, you know,
like, acknowledge, like,perfectionist. Or like,
Amanda Jane Lee (27:41):
yeah, I struggle that sometimes.
Indra Klavins (27:45):
But you know, I appreciate the candor, I
appreciate the advice that youshared with everyone, and I
trust that our listeners havegotten something good out of
this one so, and I hope y'allwill join us next time when we
cover another topic for themessy middle, bye, everyone,
bye. Thanks for taking time withus in the messy middle. Word of
(28:05):
mouth remains most powerful wayfor people to find us. If this
episode sparked something foryou, we'd love it. If you'd
subscribe to the podcast on yourfavorite app, download a few
episodes and share it withsomeone else who's navigating
the in between. Do you haveideas for future episodes or
topics you'd like us to explore.You can find our feedback form
at the messymiddle matters.comor in the show notes. Thank you
(28:27):
for joining us on this journey.This work is better when we do
it together, until next timeyou.
Indra. Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome
you to the messy middle matters,where my friends and I explore
all the twists, turns andchallenges that arise in the
messy middle of work. Hieveryone. Today. We're talking
about one of the reasons thatpeople in teams struggle to
deliver. It's their commitmentto perfection. It's the fact
that they get stuck on makingsure that it's just right. And
(00:29):
when they do that, sometimesthey lose the forest for the
trees, so to speak. You know,while perfectionism can drive
excellence, it can also stallyour progress. Like one of the
stories that comes to mind whenI think about this is I was
supporting a team, and we wereworking on some work for the
client, and the lead was like,No, we need to get this right.
(00:51):
We need to get that right. And I10 turned to them, and I said,
you know, Vincent, I'm like, Itotally love that you are so
committed to making sure thatthis is right for this client
for all these reasons, until wefinish this particular project,
we can't move on to the nextone. So is this good enough? And
he said, Oh, okay, when youframe it that way. So today
(01:13):
we're going to be talking about,you know, helping people know
when it's the right time to puttheir pencils down, so to speak,
and when they should keep on,holding on onto them and working
that solution. So today,Amanda's joining me, and I know
you got a lot of good stuff tosay about this. You know, as
part of your craft, you helppeople keep their hold onto
(01:34):
their pencils or put them downall the time. So first and
foremost, how are you today,Amanda,
Amanda Jane Lee (01:38):
I'm good. So this conversation is close to my
heart, because, of course, itis. I think of myself as a
recovering perfectionist. It'shard when you hold yourself to
such high standards, right? Butit's knowing the difference
between excellence andperfection and knowing when to
(01:58):
stop
Indra Klavins (02:00):
100% I went by a similar label for a long time
when I was trying to let go ofmy perfectionist tendencies. I
called myself a failedperfectionist, and then people
would look at me like, oddly,I'm like, I'm just, I'm
acknowledging the fact that Ihave a hard time. And by saying
it out loud, fail perfectionist,it helps me let it go. Yeah, let
it go, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (02:19):
Putting it out in the universe helps, helps
you, like, internalize it,externalize it, and just, like,
just let it
Indra Klavins (02:26):
go, detach, detach. Because, like, the
reality of it is, if we'rethinking about, you know,
growing up in an Americanschool, I went to public school,
I think it's not all thatdifferent in private school,
Amanda, I think you're a publicschool kid too. Yeah, private
and public?
Amanda Jane Lee (02:42):
Yeah, I went to private school from kindergarten
to eighth grade in public schoolafter that.
Indra Klavins (02:48):
Okay, so you can check me on some of this stuff,
but like in I think that in bothof those environments, if we're
talking about primary schools,even we can get into
universities on this. But let'sstick with the one experience I
think everyone has had is inprimary schools and in high
school, getting things perfectwas so encouraged, like you got
the perfect score. You wanted toget the perfect answer. You
(03:09):
wanted your penmanship to beperfect. You needed to, you
know, factor that out in thatmath equation, perfectly, your
geometry, your your proof ingeometry had to be perfect,
whether you know your pitch onthat softball team that was
overhand, it means underhand.Sorry, I I'm a very visual
thinker, for those of youlistening, and I gestured the
(03:30):
wrong way, but I'm gonna let goof my perfectionism. Getting
that pitch perfect, it's hard,you know, like all those things
you can imagine in yourextracurriculars like that, is
so honed in, in the way that weget graded at school. Oh, yeah,
totally.
Amanda Jane Lee (03:47):
And add growing up in an Asian household to all
of that, and it's like, Hey, Igot an A. Well, why not an A?
Indra Klavins (03:57):
Plus. It's so true, like these standards that
get created, like, they put youinto a box. We're not going to
discuss why those boxes exist,because that's a whole nother
conversation I'm happy to have,but we don't have the time for
it. But they put you into theseboxes. And not only do they put
(04:18):
you into a box, they put yourbrain into a box too, of like,
and getting out of that boxseems to only have one way out,
which is why I got it perfect,and now I can move on, right?
And so, like, today, we'll talkabout, like, you know, the
pencils down metaphor came froma lovely story. I'm going to
share it because I want everyoneto have access to the story when
(04:39):
they're thinking about andcommunicating with their team.
So the story that I heard wasabout somebody going to back to
school night, and there were twokindergarten classes, and the
person walking past thatkindergarten classes noticed
that one of the kindergartenclassrooms had art that looked
like you would see fromkindergarteners, you know, and
all of his school spectacles.Glory with all the colors and
(05:01):
all the everything. And in theother classroom, the artwork
still was colorful, but it wasso much more beautiful. And so
the person passing by said tothe teacher, oh my goodness,
you're you. You've just got sucha gifted class. They're such
great artists. Like, how didthat happen? She goes, I just
(05:23):
know when to take their pencilsaway from them. Because in that
scenario, they weren'toverworking their work and
continuing to color. They justlike the children didn't
recognize, and a lot of us don'trecognize when is good enough.
Good enough, right?
Amanda Jane Lee (05:39):
Yeah, the metaphor that comes to my mind
because I'm still on my potteryjourney. I was just at the
studio yesterday, and I madethis beautiful bowl. I was so
proud of it. I have this, thisvideo of it. It's great. And I
messed with it too much. I waslike, oh, like, this isn't
great. This isn't perfect. Itweaked, I tweaked. And like, I
(06:01):
I didn't know at that moment,like, I had a lapse in judgment,
and I didn't know when to put myso called pencils down
Indra Klavins (06:09):
it. But it's so true, like you think of, like
from pop culture, like inProject Runway, you overwork
that dress, or in in Top Chef,like, oh, you had too many
ideas. You needed to edit,right. Like, right? You needed
to edit. There's too manygarnishes here. Flavors are
money, right? It becomes justlike those pictures in that
(06:30):
classroom. Things become muddywhen you don't know when to put
your pencils down. Like,literally, figuratively,
metaphorically, they just getmuddy. So let's talk about it.
Let's talk about it. I thinkthat we are I'm thinking we're
going to give I suspect we'regoing to go through this in two
different angles, like one,we've touched a little bit on
both of them. Like, how do youas a practitioner, no matter
(06:53):
what your craft is, no matterwhat career stage you're at, how
do you know when to put yourpencils down, or what tools and
tricks can you use to help youidentify when you should put
your pencils down? And then it'salso for your team members, like
whether you're in a leadershipcapacity or program management
capacity, or you're a peerlooking at your friend being
like, dude, put your pencil downand it's good enough. Which it
(07:19):
can be good enough can be such ait can be such a derogatory it
can or, like, like, a negativeconnotation, like, oh, that's
just good enough. Like, let'sjust, that's passable. But what
people don't realize, and somepeople will do that like,
they're like, Oh, it's goodenough. I'll take it all, like,
let's just move on. Like, butwhat people don't realize, in a
world that's trained us to beperfectionists, are good enough,
(07:42):
and I'm putting that in airquotes, is often someone else's
A plus work, especially ifyou're an overachiever, like so
aiming for good enough issometimes really exceptional,
Amanda Jane Lee (07:54):
right? Your your 80% is someone's 120%
Indra Klavins (07:58):
like, blows it out of the water. So true. And I
saw an article on this recently.It was relative to, like the
design world. Somebody post, Ithink I posted on LinkedIn,
somebody was saying, is that,you know, most people are gonna
the people who are receivingyour work, or the recipients, or
whether they're the businessside or the end user, they're
not going to understand half ofthe stuff that you put into it
(08:21):
like you're Are you doing it foryou? Are you doing it for what
will meet their needs and theirexpectations of excellence,
right? Right? So understandingthat difference, which is where,
you know, I think that's where,that's where you get into
feedback. That's where you getinto feedback, and having that
external, non emotional person,no matter how much we like to
(08:41):
pretend like we don't haveemotional have emotions at work,
we do having that person give anobjective perspective on, like,
hey, is this good enough foryou? Is this good enough to go
live?
Amanda Jane Lee (08:52):
Right? Like, how does this land? Right? Like,
let me put this out in into theworld, yeah. How do you think
it'll land for, you know, forthis audience, for you know, for
this meeting, what, whatever theparameters are,
Indra Klavins (09:04):
yeah, and that could be something so formal as
usability testing, right? Like,that's where you figure out,
like, what's good enough? Like,your your MVP, your minimum
viable product, your minimumdesirable product, whatever the
latest acronym of the moment is,right, where you, where you
might go through that formalprocess to figure out what's
enough. You might go throughsome executive review, where
(09:25):
executives decide what's goodenough, right? You know, there
is that, or you find yourleader, you find your peer, you
find your partner to help youdefine, like, what is good
enough?
Amanda Jane Lee (09:37):
Yeah, I think that's a really it's a really
helpful framing, right of liketaking a step back and defining
what good enough is and aligningon what good enough is, is so
helpful,
Indra Klavins (09:53):
you know, this is what's coming to mind and is
acceptance criteria. So forfolks not. Familiar with
acceptance criteria. So withinthe agile framework for project,
project, program management,getting stuff done. Management,
when you before you initiatework, not only you do define
(10:14):
what you're creating, you definethe parameters that will say
that this is, it's a definitionof Done. So is it done when the
code is done? Is it done whenthat action can be triggered by
that thing? Is it done whenyou've applied let's take it
from a design perspective. Is itdone when I draw the thing and
(10:35):
everything is laid out in theright place? Or is it done when
I've actually applied the visuallanguage to it, made sure the
brand colors align and all that.Like defining that before you
start work helps, because atthat moment in time, you're not
emotionally attached to thething you're doing, you're not
as you're not as emotionallyattached. You know, you're a
(10:55):
click away for that, right? Ithelps to define that before you
start your work, and then youcan always gut check yourself
against that. So I love the factthat you you brought that one
in. Yeah.
Amanda Jane Lee (11:05):
What's top of mind for me is presentation
decks, right? Presentationdecks, we all love a deck, and I
think being honest with yourselfand being upfront before you
even start. What is the purposeof this, right? Is it to
communicate clearly to anexecutive team what's going on?
(11:27):
Or is it to, you know, go intoall of the details about, what,
about what's going on with thisproject, you know, all all the
little nuances, right? Likeknowing your audience, knowing
what your goals are, is reallyimportant and helpful to to
(11:48):
knowing when to stop,
Indra Klavins (11:50):
yeah, and as you're talking about decks, what
came to mind is, so I've spentan awful lot of time with design
teams and where the world thedesign teams would love most
design teams are many, maybe,let's say many, many designers,
many design teams would love tolive in is a world where
(12:11):
everything is pixel perfect,right, like and literally down
to the literal pixel. And whythat came to mind? Because you
said Dex and, like, always,like, the alignment that this,
the fonts I can get the fonts,the graphics, I can get obsessed
over this stuff too. So, I mean,I know, sometimes I say, like,
oh, the fonts. People getobsessed. I can get obsessed
(12:32):
about the fonts too. Let's bereal. But you know, part of this
is also when not to let go ofthat, right? Sometimes that is
so important, right? Like, it'sbecause sometimes pixels do
matter, sometimes, like thatalignment, if, like, for
example. So I spent a lot oftime in financial services, and
there we're working with a lotof tables of data. A lot of that
(12:56):
is money or numbers to multipledecibel decimal points that are
a lot that you know can go out.The numbers that we get back
from our databases can have beto the 10th, the 100th to the
1,000th. They can go manyminutes, up to six decimal
places, depending on the number,sometimes on a row level. And
(13:17):
what can be important is thatyour decimal aligned, so someone
can scan that table right? Solike everything, you can see
everything to the left of thedecimal, you can see everything
to the right of the decimal, andit all lines up, and the user
can read that. Now somebodymight say, Oh, I'm just going to
make it right aligned. It's somuch easier. And I know, I know,
technically they're all similarin the level of effort, but
(13:40):
somebody might have just bydefault, Gone with the default
alignment. And let's say thatit's in that particular code
framework, it's all rightaligned to everything. And there
it might be worth going to thatperfection level to get that
decimal alignment, because, youknow that's that important to
the user. So like, there is thetime. Like you shouldn't when
(14:01):
somebody says it's good enough,you should really ask, like, is
it good enough? Becausesometimes it really will matter
and it can make or breaksomething. Yeah, I
Amanda Jane Lee (14:10):
think that's a really great point of about
understanding the user, right?Yeah, understanding, you know,
the purpose and who is consumingthis thing that you're working
on, right? Because, like, goingback to decks, right is this, is
this deck for, you know, a morecasual, internal audience, or is
(14:32):
this deck for a prospectiveclient where, you know, first
impressions matter and like itneeds to look beautiful?
Indra Klavins (14:41):
Or am I polishing this deck for this internal
user? Because I know that forthem, they will get distracted
by the font and the color andthen this and that and the other
thing, because there are thosepeople, especially if I'm
thinking about your CMOS of theworld, right, if I'm presenting
them using like taking the timeto polish that deck and spend.
Those extra hours to make surethat all the slides aligned to a
(15:03):
certain template can beworthwhile. Or am I polishing
the deck? Because, you know,I've created so many decks for
CMO, and I really value that asmy craft, but it may not make
sense in this scenario. Is itfor me? Am I polishing the deck
for me, because it'll make mefeel good about my work where,
(15:23):
and there's a time and a placefor that, or am I making it
truly for that? End recipient,end recipient of whatever I'm
creating.
Amanda Jane Lee (15:31):
Yeah, I think, you know, the the definition of
good enough is, you know, partof that definition is, is this
going to meet the audience'sneeds, or, like, the end user's
needs, or am I just doing thisfor, you know, my own internal
critic 100%
Indra Klavins (15:50):
and like, let's go to some examples that are not
so, like visual like, if I'mthinking about, like, code
handoffs between softwareengineering teams. And, I mean,
I could go into copy examplesand also, but I'll go with the
worlds I'm most familiar with.If I'm doing code handoff to
another software engineer, youknow, for software engineer a, I
may not need to annotate mycode, because they know what's
(16:11):
going on, and I know thatthey're going to annotate both
mine and their code when theywhen they do things. But for
software Am I handing off tosoftware engineer B? I know that
they're overseas, they haven'tbeen in the business
discussions, and they might lookat this particular line of code
and be like, What did you do,and why did you do it that way,
taking the time to have perfectannotations so they understand
(16:32):
why this decision, which is nonstandard, was made, and they can
just move on and do their thinglike, that's Those are two
different audiences, sounderstanding the contextual
definition of perfection isreally like or non perfection or
good actually, contextualdefinition of good enough is
really important. Yeah, you saidcopy. And what popped into my
(16:54):
head was,
Amanda Jane Lee (16:56):
I don't know if this has happened to you, but
like, have you? Have you everspent, like, more time than you
should have writing an email foryou know, say an executive, and
you send it off and they respondwith thanks sent for my phone.
Indra Klavins (17:14):
It's so funny, like, okay, so a bunch of things
popped into my mind as you'retelling the story. One, so when
Amanda and I used to worktogether like I was when there
was a complex scenario, and Iwanted to make sure that there
was alignment. So I would bringthe full TPM team, technical
program management team togetherand be like, let's I'm going to
craft the email. I want you allto have eyes on it. Just make
(17:34):
sure that I'm not missinganything and that we can all
stand behind this, because we'reall going to have to support it.
We Amanda was known as. So I waslike, oh, write it through
Grammarly. And then we're like,Amanda Lee was our Grammarly
there, because you are so goodat this. So that's one thing
that came to mind, no, it wasgreat. It was great. And the
(17:57):
other thing that came to mind,and this helps me, it helps me
get unstuck when I'm writinglike not the topic of this
conversation, but it also helpsme get rid of my perfection
thing. I use GPT a lot.Sometimes what I'll use GPT is
to, like to kick start mywriting so I don't get obsessed
over everything or or I mightwrite it myself and then send it
(18:20):
to GPT and say, What's yourimpression of this piece of
work? It? Yes, it's a sycophant.Yes, it will tell me, my life is
wonderful. But sometimes they'llbe like, Hey, someone else wrote
this email. What's yourimpression of it? Yeah. Is this
appropriate for, you know, theCEO of a startup at or do you
think that there's a better wayto write this? That's another
way of using technology to helpme let my letting go, muscle go
(18:45):
and without shape with like theonly person who knows I asked
that gut check is me and theGPT. And the GPT never remembers
half of what it remember of whatI told it anyway. So, yeah, I
think
Amanda Jane Lee (18:58):
practicing putting yourself in someone
else's shoes, right? Is is ahelpful exercise, too, not not
putting yourself and your maybeperfectionist or recovering
perfectionist self into theshoes of the someone receiving
this email, but putting yourselfinto actually that person's
(19:19):
shoes that you know that that Clevel executive Re is going to
read this on on their iPhone? Isthis good enough? Yeah, I think
so it does. It say what it needsto say. It doesn't need to be
perfect fonts, bolded,highlighted, you know what
formatted in the most perfectway, like I don't need to spend
(19:42):
more time agonizing over this. Ican use this time and energy and
effort to do something elsethat's more productive,
Indra Klavins (19:50):
right? And then knowing when is it time to
assemble TPMS, let's write thisemail together, right? Like or
even asking, Hey, I pulled youall together because I think
it's important. And for all ofus be aligned. Do you guys
agree, or am I overthinkingthis? Right? Great way to start
the conversation, because theny'all wouldn't have been by
starting, I think I started theconversations every once in a
(20:11):
while, like that. Like, itwouldn't be you guys could say
to me, like, Indra, you'reoverthinking this. I got better
use for my time. Like, great.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:18):
Fantastic, right? This looks This looks
great. Ship it, right?
Indra Klavins (20:23):
Or you'd been like, Oh, you haven't thought
about this enough. There's this,this, this, this, and this,
like, I wasn't, well, thatwouldn't be perfectionist
enough. But like, sometimesyou're not. Sometimes there will
be the moments where you'retired, where you're exhausted,
you're sick and tired of workingon this. Like, it's version
seven, version 12, version 31,of this deck. Like, like, decks
(20:46):
can be really tough, andsometimes it's like, you know,
like, you will, you will maybeair on the other side be like,
can I just, can I just ship it?Can I just ship it? Like, right?
I need the guns done.
Amanda Jane Lee (20:56):
Like, does it communicate? What it needs to
communicate? Or, like, do I do?I actually, really need to spend
more time polishing this? Yeah,and I
Indra Klavins (21:05):
think that the last place where we, I think we
can go, where I'd like to go, isa little bit when the person
asking you for the thing isn'tis stuck in their perfectionism.
This might be the toughestbecause I had a bus, I am very
I'm very consistent at how Iformat my spreadsheet that comes
(21:28):
from a and everyone canrecognize my spreadsheet. So,
like, Oh, I could tell youcreated that one. I'm like, I
know, like, I've got a signatureI got that's on brand for me,
another episode, but I've got, Igot a branding on how I design
my spreadsheets that came fromworking underneath the bus. She
wasn't the greatest, but she wasa perfectionist when it came to
spreadsheet. She had a certainway that she expected things.
(21:49):
And you know, it's worked forme, even though I didn't care
for her in general, this hasworked for me like but there are
those leaders that will be like,No, you didn't do data. It needs
to be. Like, you chose, youchose the wrong font, you chose
the wrong alignment, you chosethe wrong I get. I'm grabbing
onto easy visuals, since we arean audio podcast. But like, you
(22:12):
know, there are those people whojust can't let it go, unless
it's like, pixel perfect, orcode perfect, or like zero
defect free, or, you know, like,just perfectly aligned.
Amanda Jane Lee (22:23):
Yeah, I think it's worth noting that when say
you are that person, right, I'mnot, I'm not accusing anyone of
being that person, but say youare that person, you can say
that I'm that person, becauseeveryone knows that. No, but
like, say you are that personwho, like, needs, everything,
perfect. Who needs, who needsthe deck that someone else is
(22:44):
creating? For me to have theperfect font, to have the
perfect alignment, to have this,that or the other, or, like, you
know, whatever document it is,you know, going in there. And
because I've experienced this onthe other end of just having
someone line by line, commentafter comment, and it just
becomes
Indra Klavins (23:03):
nit picky. It feels micro managing and
nitpicky.
Amanda Jane Lee (23:07):
Yeah, yes. It feels micromanaging and nit
picky. And you know it therecomes a point where the
nitpicking, the comments, thefeedback, isn't actually making
it better, no, but that behavioris sending the message that your
work isn't good enough.
Indra Klavins (23:29):
And it's, it's, it's undermining trust.
Unknown (23:33):
Yeah, yeah, those are the that's, that's, I think so,
if you are a leader
Indra Klavins (23:41):
who is for whatever baggage reasons. In
this scenario where you're theone who's constantly asking for
perfect, I think it's worthasking why it's. I think it's
worth asking why it could be. Itcould be because the person
above them, etc, etc, and it'slike cascading down, yeah, but
the question is
Amanda Jane Lee (24:01):
why. The question is why, and if, if you
don't have a compelling answeras to why, let's, let's figure
out how not to be that
Indra Klavins (24:12):
way. I think it's easier said than done.
Amanda Jane Lee (24:15):
Oh, recovering perfectionist here it is easier
said than done. But I think justrealizing, acknowledging that
there is an impact
Indra Klavins (24:23):
to that. Yeah, and I think that whether you're
managing up, trying to getsomebody to manage their to
adjust their behavior, or you'remanaging down and trying to
mitigate your behavior fromcascading down right like in
either case, leadership has aperfection. I think in both
(24:44):
scenarios, it's simple. Is notalways easy, right? It's about,
I think it's again, it's thosesmall changes, like, what's the
one thing that I can do? Can Ilet go of the critique? One
round? Early. Here, right? Or ifyou're managing up, can I get
(25:05):
them to let go of the theformatting on this one specific
slide when I because I explainedto them that getting this one
slide aligned is going to takeeight hours of work, and that's
going to keep the person frombeing able to do these 10 other
slides that are out there. Like,what is that one? Seemingly
(25:28):
small, but it's the beginning,right? Like, you know, it's with
everything. A lot of so manythings in life start with these
small, little, micro things,right?
Amanda Jane Lee (25:38):
Yeah, finding what, what feels more low stakes
than everything else? And andseeing if you can let that go,
yeah, and then just seeing howyou
Indra Klavins (25:50):
feel, yeah. And then, like, I think that the I'm
looking at some of our notes aswe're prepping for the
conversation, you know, like,what is it? The quote that came
up through that was done isbetter than perfect. And
sometimes good is brilliant. Sothat's one, but the other one I
got this. I have a I have a thedaily calendar from Seth Godin
(26:11):
for this year. And one of therecent um items I collect, the
ones that are resonant or I knowthat are going to be a topic. So
this one says from Seth Godin,shipping our work is a chance to
be seen, to learn, to own it andto do better next time. So I
love that framing, because youknow, if I'm trying to let go or
(26:33):
I'm trying to encourage someoneelse to let go, whether it's a
person, a beloved above me orbelow me, let's just get it done
and we'll do better next time,because that continuous
improvement mindset, it's like,I'm not saying that Perfection
isn't what we strive for. I'msaying maybe we won't get it the
reality is, you'll never get itperfect, if we're honest. But
(26:55):
like, maybe we won't get itperfect this time. Maybe we'll
get it perfect next time.
Amanda Jane Lee (27:00):
Yeah, it's the whole it's, you know, the
iteration and the continuousimprovement and progress over
perfection. Progress overperfect.
Indra Klavins (27:09):
Yeah, there's another quote, every time, every
time it's, it's every day alittle bit better. Every day a
little bit better. And as longas you're working with human
beings, I don't think there isreally, truly a perfection. It's
just the best that we could dotoday. Yeah? Amanda, thank you
(27:31):
for joining me on this one. Iknow this is a tough one for
both of us to talk aboutsometimes. Or like, you know,
like, acknowledge, like,perfectionist. Or like,
Amanda Jane Lee (27:41):
yeah, I struggle that sometimes.
Indra Klavins (27:45):
But you know, I appreciate the candor, I
appreciate the advice that youshared with everyone, and I
trust that our listeners havegotten something good out of
this one so, and I hope y'allwill join us next time when we
cover another topic for themessy middle, bye, everyone,
bye. Thanks for taking time withus in the messy middle. Word of
(28:05):
mouth remains most powerful wayfor people to find us. If this
episode sparked something foryou, we'd love it. If you'd
subscribe to the podcast on yourfavorite app, download a few
episodes and share it withsomeone else who's navigating
the in between. Do you haveideas for future episodes or
topics you'd like us to explore.You can find our feedback form
at the messymiddle matters.comor in the show notes. Thank you
(28:27):
for joining us on this journey.This work is better when we do
it together, until next timeyou.
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