Done Is Better Than Perfect

Why I Stopped Perfecting the Plan and Started Running It

I make lists of my lists. I've built entire planning systems dedicated to a plan I hadn't actually started yet.

For a long time I told myself that was thoroughness. It wasn't. It was a very organized form of avoidance because as long as the plan wasn't finished, I never had to find out whether it actually worked.

A plan's value was never in how complete it was before I started. It gets tested, and finished, by actually running it. You're going to tweak it regardless of how much you polish it first, which means most of that pre-launch polishing is wasted motion.

So here's what changed: I gave myself permission to start an unfinished plan. I started treating the first attempt as a rough draft I'm allowed to revise, instead of a final version I have to get right on the first try. I set a real deadline for "start", not just for "finish planning."

What's the plan you've been perfecting instead of running?