"Thanks for your proposal. It was superb. Unfortunately it missed the deadline. Sorry." If you've heard that before, chances are you've fallen prey to a laudable but potential destructive tendency – perfectionism.

Advertisement

You've agonised over it, printed successive drafts and checked dates and figures over and over. It’s taken longer than you hoped and you’ve fallen behind on other projects as a result, but now it’s almost ready. Shortly you’ll send out the email memo that the fridge in the office kitchen will be defrosted over the weekend, so staff should please remove their food from it.

Perfectionism can get out of hand
This is an extreme example of perfectionism, an ostensibly admirable trait that can get dangerously out of hand. Few other descriptions of workplace style carry as many positive and negative connotations.

For one, people who work with you know that that can expect exhaustively researched, checked, rechecked, watertight, hermetically sealed, obsessively footnoted minutes on the meeting of the office entertainment committee’s plan for an end-of-year bash.

Perfectionism causes bottlenecks
On the other hand, a number of them may worry that you apply the same compulsive attention to detail to everyone you work with, making you a bit of a bottleneck in productivity.

Author Odette Pollar notes that many perfectionists face the challenge of having to prove themselves over and over again – rather than acknowledging to themselves that they know the ropes and getting the work done.

Over-commitment counterproductive
Some perfectionists tend to over-commit themselves to work as a way showing themselves to be capable of “coming up with the goods” under pressure. It can all seem dramatic and theatrical, but in the long run it’s counterproductive.

Pollar adds that perfectionists in senior positions tend to hire people like themselves, which means that work is of a high standard, but that there’s often friction and a competitive edge to cooperation.

“There are often conflicts when overzealous taskmasters collide with capable, but less than totally obsessive employees. Others who have more balance in their lives and go home at a reasonable time at night can be seen as less serious or less committed, even though that is not always true,” says Pollar.

So what can you do? Try drawing up a list of tasks you carry out regularly and weight them by their need for perfectionism. Be objective and avoid the urge to list everything as needing to be absolutely tip-top.

In his book More Hours in Your Day, Dr Brian Jude suggests using an egg-timer or a kitchen-timer to control how long you spend on daily tasks. Combining this with a list of priorities and a brutal sense of pragmatism could not only make you more productive, but could get you home at a civilized hour every now and then. (William Smook)
 

Print this article

Rate this article Poor 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent

JOBS

Financial Manager R500,000-550,000 Per Annum Cost To Company Gauteng Chief Financial Officer (Chartered Accountant) R1000,000-1500,000 Per Month Cost To Company Gauteng Tax Consultant (Chartered Accountant) AA preferably R300,000-500,000 Per Annum Cost To Company Western Cape - Cape Town Financial Manager/Financial Operations (Chartered Accountant) R380,000-500,000 Per Annum Cost To Company Gauteng Training Specialist R250,000-320,000 Per Annum Cost To Company Gauteng - East Rand CFO Gauteng Human Resources Manager R420,000-540,000 Per Month Cost To Company Gauteng Chief Financial Officer R900,000-901,000 Per Month Cost To Company Gauteng Find more jobs Register your CV Post a job