Why is getting things done better than getting them perfect?
Updated 23 July 2026 by Chanelle Segerius-Bruce
Wanting things to be perfect is not the problem. Perfectionism becoming the reason nothing ships is. This covers why perfectionism and procrastination are the same habit wearing different clothes, and five reasons David Allen's Getting Things Done approach gets you further than waiting for perfect ever will.
Quick answer
Getting things done beats getting them perfect because perfectionism is all-or-nothing thinking, where something is either flawless or a failure, and that is what feeds procrastination. GTD, David Allen's productivity method, moves you from a stagnant pool of ideas into actionable steps. It gets work into the world, buys back the time perfectionism eats, lets you learn through failing quickly, and loosens your attachment to a result you cannot fully control anyway. A finished thing you consider lousy will usually serve your audience better than a perfect one still sitting in a folder.
Complete beats incomplete
Think of the projects you have started and not finished. The ebook you have meant to write for months to help your clients, while you scroll looking for the best way to write an ebook.
Perfectionism feeds procrastination, and what you are left with is a wonderful collection of ideas that never happen. GTD pushes things out into the world quickly. An ebook you think is lousy, which your audience may well love, beats a document quietly ageing in a folder.
You get your time back
Perfectionism eats time. A two-sentence email congratulating a client turns into half an hour of weighing up individual words.
High standards are good. Getting bogged down in detail is not, and a clear sense of why you are doing something keeps you on the part that matters. The Pareto principle helps here, finding the 20 per cent of effort that gets 80 per cent of the result.
Tara Mohr calls the alternative designing at the whiteboard, in Playing Big. At some point you have to make the thing happen.
You learn through failing
If you are a perfectionist, the fear of failing is the engine. You try to control the environment, the circumstances and every detail, largely to avoid putting anything out where it could fail.
Roughly nine out of ten start-ups fail. That number is enough to frighten anyone off, and it is also why people like Richard Branson launch many businesses. When one fails they move on, having paid for the lesson, knowing enough attempts will land.
GTD means you fail faster, which means you learn faster.
You stop being attached to the result
The reason we want everything just right is that we have decided what the outcome has to be. Loosening that grip is what lets you release work at all.
You control the effort and the shipping. The response belongs to other people.
You build momentum instead of pressure
Finishing things is a habit, and each one makes the next easier. Perfectionism runs the other way, where every unfinished project raises the stakes on the next one.
Momentum is what you are actually building. The individual outputs improve on their own once things are moving.
Key takeaways
- Perfectionism is all-or-nothing thinking, and it is what procrastination runs on.
- A finished thing you think is lousy beats a perfect one nobody has seen.
- Perfectionism is expensive in hours, not just in output.
- The Pareto principle finds the 20 per cent of effort worth spending.
- Failing quickly is how you learn quickly, which is why people who do this for a living keep launching.
- You control the effort and the shipping. The response is not yours to control.
- Momentum compounds. Each finished thing makes the next one easier.
Frequently asked questions
What is GTD?
Getting Things Done, a productivity method from David Allen. It moves you from a stagnant pool of ideas into a set of actionable steps, which makes it a good antidote to perfectionism.
Is perfectionism really a bad thing?
Wanting quality is fine. Perfectionism is all-or-nothing, where something is either flawless or a failure and there is only one right route. That is what leads to nothing shipping.
How do I stop procrastinating on a big project?
Ship something smaller and sooner. The version you consider lousy is usually more useful to your audience than the perfect version that stays in a folder.
What is the Pareto principle?
The idea that roughly 20 per cent of the effort produces 80 per cent of the result. Finding that 20 per cent is how you stop over-polishing.
Does failing quickly actually help?
It is how you learn quickly. Around nine in ten start-ups fail, which is precisely why experienced business owners launch several things and move on from the ones that do not work.
Shipping more, but still doing it all yourself?
Getting things done faster helps right up to the point where you are the constraint. Get Leveraged, my 1:1 consulting, is about building the business so it stops routing everything through you. Book a call to see if we're the right fit.
