Is "Good Enough" Good Enough? - WN 164

How do you decide when to publish your creative work? Is there a point at which you say it's "good enough"? Or do you have a tendency to polish and play around with those "last final tweaks" indefinitely? This week, we're talking about what it means to do your best in a world where "best" is subjective and perfect doesn't exist. Get ready!

For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, please visit: https://www.sarahwerner.com/is-good-enough-good-enough/ 

Thank you for listening! To support the work I do here at the Write Now podcast, you can become a patron on Patreon at  https://patreon.com/sarahrheawerner, or send me a tip on Ko-Fi at https://ko-fi.com/sarahwerner.

Happy writing!
— Sarah

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the Write NowPodcast with Sarah Werner,

Episode 164 (00:04):
Is "Good Enough" Good Enough?

(00:29):
Welcome to Write Now,
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm your host, Sarah Werner,
and today I want to talk about an articlethat my good friend Jimmie sent me.
I have to say, I love itwhen people send me articles.

(00:53):
I don't have as much time or energy asI used to to sort of trawl the internet
for interesting things,
and so I love it when friends whoknow me fairly well say, "Hey,
I read this and I thoughtof you." First of all,
it's just nice to know that yourfriends are thinking of you.
It's just a good feeling. Second,
a lot of this I never wouldhave found myself - or it maybe

(01:16):
has a headline that Iwas not inclined to read.
So - deeply appreciative for thosepeople who keep me up to date with
good and interesting things that relateto writing. This particular article
is by Oliver Burkeman,who wrote 4,000 Weeks,
which was a book that reallyhelped me to work through my time

(01:37):
scarcity. I don't remember if I'vetalked about it on this podcast or not,
but a while ago (and by awhile, I mean last year),
I was going through thisreally uncomfortable
panicked phase where all I couldthink about was, "Oh my gosh,
I'm going to die soon and I'm notgoing to have done everything in

(01:59):
my life that I wanted to do." Andso I'd work myself up into a frenzy,
and every day I would sit down andjust push out as much work as I could.
Which... in the waythat these things work,
the work that I was pushing out underpanic and stress (and maybe pushing
past what was maybe healthy), thestuff I was writing was not very good.

(02:21):
I wasn't having fun. I washaving actual panic attacks.
It was just not a good time. Someonerecommended to me during this time that
I read 4,000 Weeks by OliverBurkeman, which is all about:
What is time? What do we dowith the time that we have?
How are we using the time that we have?

(02:42):
How are we supposed touse the time that we have?
Is there such thing as wastingtime? It's an excellent book,
and I journaled alongside reading it,
which was very helpful for mein really internalizing what it
had to say.(Also,
for any of you who got concerned whenI said I was worried I was going to die

(03:03):
soon, I am not. Well, Imean hopefully I'm not,
I'm healthy, I'm fine.
It was just this irrationalfear that crept in and sort of
nestled into my brain and stayed therefor a while sending little jolts of
shock through my nervous system.)So,

(03:23):
knowing that I was a huge fan ofOliver Burkeman and this book,
my friend Jimmie sent me this article,
which was a post fromOliver Burkeman's blog,
which I didn't even knowexisted until this point.
The blog is called The Imperfectionist,
and I'll have a link to it in theshow notes for today's episode.
The article itself is called"Seventy per cent," and in it,

(03:46):
Oliver Burkeman postulatesthe "70% Rule". So he says,
"If you're roughly 70% happy witha piece of writing you've produced,
you should publish it." Now,if you're anything like me,
you have a knee-jerk reactionto someone saying that to you.
And it's kind of funny, because I callmyself a recovering perfectionist,

(04:08):
but I'm not a recoveringperfectionist. I am,
deep down,
as I keep realizing throughdifferent forms and means
and methods, very much a perfectionist.
So those of you who are anythinglike me just immediately question,
"How could I publish somethingthat is less than my best?"

(04:32):
And it's actually kind of funny,
because I thought back to the previousepisode of the Write Now Podcast -
episode 163,
where I talked about cynicism aroundgoals - and I was thinking about those
posters in school, and Iwonder if I got it from there.
Those inspirational motivationalposters that you see in school
hallways that are like,

(04:53):
"Always try your hardest!" "Pride anddedication make the difference!" "Make it
a great day or not - thechoice is yours." I wonder if
maybe I got the idea of "Neversettle for less than your best!"
from something like that. If you, dearlistener, have heard this phrase before,
if you know where it's from, letme know in the comments below.

(05:14):
I am very curious where Ipicked up this nugget of wisdom,
because it has become something of a
theme in my life.I like to make things that are good.
I like to make things that Iam proud to put my name on.
I like to make things thatearn five-star reviews.

(05:35):
I like to make things where the amountof effort I put in and the amount of
quality that comes out of my work arebalanced and reflect on each other.
And... I gotta be honest, there'sprobably some ego in there, too.
The things that we write and create andput into the world are reflections of
who we are,

(05:57):
and why would we want to show theworld anything less than our best?
There's also maybe an element - and thisis something I don't talk a lot about -
there's also maybe an elementof competition or aspiration.
If I hear that the top grade Ican get on a project is an A+,
I'm going to shoot for the A+.And maybe you are like this, too.

(06:19):
Always striving, always working,
always pushing forward,
pushing yourself pastadequate and "good enough",
straining toward that far-offfinish line of perfect.
Now I know intellectually,as do you, probably,
that perfect does notexist. In fact, hilariously,

(06:43):
as I was jotting down some ideasfor this episode in my notes,
I misspelled the word "perfectionism."And Oliver Burkeman addresses
this in his blog post. He says,
"Most perfectionists havelikely heard this advice before,
that perfect is the enemy ofgood and so on," and he's right.
I've talked about this on the show before,

(07:04):
but back when I was inthe marketing world,
I had a boss who gave me someadvice, and that advice was,
"Sarah,
done is better than perfect."I was spending so long on my
reports and my audits and the workI was doing for clients that I was
actually taking too much timeand not turning over projects

(07:25):
quickly enough.
It was a whole thing. I even have anepisode of the Write Now Podcast - if you
go back and look rightnow, podcast episode 126,
it's called "Fun is Better Than Perfect,"and since I love it when things come
full circle, that interviewis with my good friend Jimmie,
who sent me this article.

(07:46):
I'll have a link to that episode as wellin the show notes. So Oliver Burkeman
says, I know, perfectionists; I knowyou don't want to hear this, but.
He offers an idea forus to consider. He says,
following this 70% rule is amuscular and muscle-building

act (08:03):
"Moving forward at 70% takes more guts,
more strength of character thanholding out for 100% because it
entails moving forwardamid uncertainty, anxiety,
and the disagreeable feeling that comeswith putting less than perfect work into
the world." So basically,

(08:24):
what he's saying is if we areable to create and release
things at 70% of what weconsider perfect (which
doesn't exist, by the way), it willactually help us to become better,
more flexible, more resilient writers.
It's basically strength training.Each time you publish something,

(08:48):
you create more and more capacityto create and publish more.
Again, I will have a link to this postin the show notes for today's episode.
So this was an interestingarticle for me to read.
It was put out by a writerand thinker whom I respect,
and said some pretty reasonablethings. Maybe it is good training,

(09:09):
maybe it does build resilience.
I know one of the reasons that I struggleto publish weekly episodes of the
Write Now podcast is becauseI think, "Oh my gosh,
I don't have anything good enough to say.
I don't have anything smart enough to say.
I have to wait until inspiration strikes.
I have to wait until the perfectidea comes to me!" When really,

(09:31):
the best episodes that I create aredone because I just sat down and thought
about things and took notes andworked up the excitement for the topic
and then recorded despiteknowing that it wasn't perfect,
and hit publish. It also raisedthe idea for me of diminishing
returns. When I first readthe article, I was like,

(09:54):
"70%? That's a bit low.
Maybe I could try shooting for 90%,
or 86%." And that got methinking about - where is that
point? What is good enough? Is it 70%?
Is it 70% for some people,but not other people?

(10:14):
Is it literally anything other than 100%?
And I think by "70%",
what Oliver Burkeman means isit's at the point where it's good,
and any additional work that youput in after that - those last final
tweaks that we all do - is theeffort that we're putting in getting

(10:35):
us anything in return?
I can put in an hour polishing anewsletter or an episode of Girl In
Space...
I could put in 25 hours polishingan episode of Girl In Space -
and will listeners reallyknow the difference?
Will they perceive 25hours worth of effort

(10:56):
between the first draftand the second draft?
This is the concept ofdiminishing returns.
It's sort of like you havea $10 bottle of wine and a
$10,000 bottle of wine.
When you take a sip ofeach of those wines,
can you taste the thousandsof dollars in difference?

(11:17):
So I was wrestling with thisquestion of, "Is it 70%? Is it 75%?
What's good enough for me,
Sarah?" And I sort of sent thisarticle out to some other writers,
and my friend Maggiegot back to me and said,
this article really reminds me of a videothat Hank Green published a few years
ago.
And she sent me a link to aVlogBrothers video from seven years ago

(11:41):
called "The Secret to MyProductivity". (And again,
I will have a link to this video in theshow notes for today's episode so you
can see it for yourself.)And basically,
he talks exactly about the same thing,
though he talks about it in differentterms. And for him, he says,
you should shoot for 80%.So he has an 80% rule.

(12:01):
And basically,
he hammers home some similar points -that there is no such thing as perfect,
and in fact, if you arestruggling to do your best,
if you are striving to do yourbest, what even IS your best?
He says no one actually canobjectively define what your "best"
is. Also,
people have different ideasof what "best" refers to - so,

(12:26):
maybe you have the best language, ormaybe you have the best metaphors,
or maybe you have the bestcharacter development,
but you're not the best in allof those categories, et cetera.
It gets really messy,
is basically what he says.He also says that what's considered
"best" or good or trendyis always changing.

(12:48):
Society values differentthings at different times,
and we don't know - we can'tknow - how that will change,
or when, or why. In the video,
Hank Green uses the metaphorof a target or a dartboard,
and if we aim for perfector trendy or maybe even

(13:09):
"best", what we're aimingfor is a subjective target,
a target that is constantly moving,constantly changing its size and shape.
And so he says that 80%effort, 80% to your best,
this effort is to increase yourchances of hitting the bull's eye,
but he also says you never knowwhere it's going to hit until

(13:31):
you throw the dart...
And that's the real sticking point.He also talks about those last final
tweaks that we like to make to ourwork to make it better, to polish it,
to make it "perfect". And he says...those last final tweaks, he says,
you're not learning anything.
You're just scared. I think a lotof this comes back to what you

(13:53):
value personally in thewriting process. For me,
it is constant learning andimprovement - if I'm not
learning while I'm doing something,
if all I'm doing is arepetitive tedious action out of
fear that I won't be liked, out of fearof what other people will think of me,

(14:13):
then it's not really doing any good.
You're back to that pointof diminishing returns.
You can polish and polish and polish,
or you can spend that time hitting"publish" and then moving on to create
something new (and hopefully better).
I've also noticed - and this is justa personal anecdote - I guess I've

(14:34):
also noticed in my own work thatwhen I spend time polishing and
tweaking, I'll go back the next day andrealize that a lot of those polishing,
tweaking things that I didto make it "better" were
actually not better, andI've wasted that day's work.
I've wasted those hours making changesthat didn't actually make things

(14:57):
"better", whatever "better" is.
I thought a little more aboutthat dart metaphor. I thought,
I've been thinking a lot about whereto throw the dart and not throwing it,
or I've been throwing afistful of darts and then
spending all of my time picking up thefallen darts or the darts out of the

(15:20):
wall, and what is that getting me?
How is that improving my work as awriter? How is that improving my craft?
And the answer is... it's not.It's perfectionism. Again,
you pull off the mask inthe Scooby-Doo episode,
and it was perfectionism all along.It turns out that that 70%,

(15:42):
that 80%, whatever yourealize it is for you,
is a balance. It's the pointof diminishing returns.
It's the point at which you'vemade this as reasonably good as you
can at the point in time where you are,
at the skill level that you're at.
And I'm preaching this to myselfas much as I'm preaching it to you.

(16:06):
And you have a choice to make:
How are you going to spendyour time and your energy?
How are you going tospend your 4,000 weeks?
How are you going to spend your writingtime, your precious writing time today?
Are you going to continueto polish, Sarah?
Are you going to try toget it from 84 to 85%,

(16:30):
or are you going to realize thatwhat you're chasing is your own
ambition? My own aspirations,
my hopes that, with a few more tweaks,
I can break through into somethingbigger and better. But these are all
feelings. And feelings, yes,
are important and valid,

(16:51):
and they can cue us into whenthings are right or wrong.
But chasing a feeling of hope oraspiration is only going to draw
us back into that spiral of perfectionism,
of polishing and polishing,
of diminishing returns on ourtime and energy as writers.

(17:12):
I spoke earlier in this episode about...
there are so many things I want to writeand produce and publish in my lifetime,
and if I spend the next however-manyyears polishing a piece,
instead of publishing it, moving on,getting better, publish it, moving on,
getting better,
I'm working against myself.This thing I'm chasing,

(17:33):
which as we all know is perfection,
doesn't exist and can't exist,
and maybe there's a littlebit of relief in that.
An exhale - the pressure,
the eternal pressure is maybe off.
Nobody expects you to makesomething that is perfect,

(17:55):
because what you see as perfect andwhat they see as perfect is different.
All you can do right now is thebest that you can do with the time
and energy and resources andskills and knowledge that you
have, right now.
And the way that you're going to growthat pool of resources, that resilience,

(18:16):
that bravery, is to figure outwhat's good enough. Figure out:
what is my 70%? What is my80%? At what point can I say,
"All right," and hit publish,
and move on?I know that the saying is,
"Done is better thanperfect," but also in my case,

(18:37):
the saying might be,
"Done is better than not doneat all." Done is better than
sitting on your life's work andnever having it go anywhere.
Done is better than nothing at all.
And I know if you're anything likeme, a voice crops up and it says, "Ah,
are you sure you want to settle for less?

(18:58):
Are you going to settle for less thanyour best?" And I don't know if it's
settling so much as it is decidingthat I am done with this project
right now. I'm going to hitsave. I'm going to hit publish.
I'm going to be done with it, and I'mgoing to move on to the next thing,
because that is how I learn andthat's how I grow as a writer.

(19:20):
Because I know better. I know betterthan to be too precious with my work.
I know better. I know that.
It's just moving it into practicethat's really hard. So I'm
going to encourage you (and I'm alsogoing to encourage myself) in this
episode to take this seriously,
and to find not disappointmentbut freedom in the idea that

(19:44):
maybe 70%, maybe 80%, is"good enough" to publish.
That maybe it's our jobto be bold and brave
and less-than-perfect, and to own that,
and to set an example forother writers and creators,
that your work is worth so much morethan sitting on it and waiting for
perfection. It helps me to remember- and maybe this will help you,

(20:08):
too - I had no ideawhat I was doing back in
2017 when I published thefirst episode of Girl in Space,
and people loved that show.They wanted more of it.
And at the time, I don'tknow what my "best" was.
I was just creatingsomething as an experiment.
I was creating it becauseit felt good to do,

(20:31):
and I was just putting it outinto the world because I could,
because it was interesting, becauseit was fun. I wasn't thinking about,
"Is this my best work?"And now when I go back and listen to it,
oh my gosh,
there are so many things I would change.
There are so many flaws and imperfections.

(20:52):
There are plot holes,there are inconsistencies.
There are things that I'm embarrassed Iwrote, let alone performed and recorded.
Going back and listening to SeasonOne of Girl in Space is, for me,
a very cringe-inducing experience.
But people loved the show. It won awards.

(21:13):
It got me speaking gigs. I got a TV deal.
If I would've treated Season One likeI'm treating Season Two right now,
like something that has to beperfect and amazing and flawless,
I would've never published it. Andstill be sitting on it, polishing it,
giving it those "last finaltweaks" to make it "perfect",

(21:35):
when really the most important,
the most life-changing thingwas that it was published,
imperfections and all. So I hopethis is inspiring and encouraging
to you, especially if you dealwith perfectionism like I do.
I would love to see what happens whenyou start experimenting and figuring out,

(21:56):
"What is my 70%?
What is my 80%?" Once you do this,
or if this is somethingyou've already done,
I would love to hear your thoughtsin the comments for today's episode.
So this is episode 164of the Write Now Podcast,
and you can get to the comments by goingout to my website at sarahwerner dot
com - that's

(22:16):
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R dotcom - and navigating to
episode 164. Once you're there,
you can scroll down past theshow notes, past the transcript,
and at the very bottom,
you should see a place where you cansubmit your comments. Please do so.
I love to read them. I love toengage with them and respond.
I do try to respond to every single one,

(22:38):
and I really do want tohear what you have to say. I
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(22:59):
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Special thanks today go topatrons Laurie, Regina Calabrese,
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Poppy Brown, Summer, TiffanyJoyner, and Whitney Magruder.

(23:20):
Thank you all so, so much for yourthoughtful and generous contributions.
I truly do appreciate it.If you are interested in
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(23:41):
"Support this show." There are alsooptions if you're not a huge fan of
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So if you feel moved to support the workthat I'm doing here at the Write Now
podcast, I would dearly and trulyappreciate it. And with that,

(24:02):
this has been episode 164of the Write Now Podcast,
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring, professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm Sarah Werner, and I'mgoing to do my 70% best.