Are you wondering how to overcome perfectionism at work?
Perfectionism at work tends to manifest as excess attention to and continuous, lengthy work on a task, assignment, or project in pursuit of a perfect final result.
Perfectionism can show up in the most mundane of activities and can set back your overall progress, especially if the work itself is satisfactory in nature.
As a productivity expert with 15+ years in the industry, I’ve seen perfectionism come up for entrepreneurs and executives in the most surprising of places.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a perfectionist, you may find yourself working on something far longer than necessary every now and then.
In this article, you’ll learn how you can overcome perfectionism and get things done in your business and life.
You’ll learn how perfectionism tends to show up at work and how it influences your productivity levels. You’ll also learn what perfectionism is often a sign of, as well as three practical techniques to help put perfectionism on pause.
Before we get started, if you want a simple daily structure to help you prioritize your work, my free Productivity Mindset Planner™ is a good place to start.
Key Takeaways
- Perfectionism at work usually signals a lack of confidence, a lack of competence, or fear of judgment — not high standards.
- Common signs include delayed deliverables, excessive tweaking, and reluctance to share drafts for feedback.
- Setting simple “production standards” before starting a task prevents endless revision loops.
- Reserving your energy for high-impact tasks protects your time for the work that actually moves your business forward.
- Accepting that work “can always be better” doesn’t mean every task deserves unlimited time — do your best within the time and resources you have.
Table of Contents
What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism tends to manifest as excess attention to and continuous, unnecessary, lengthy work on a task, assignment, or project in pursuit of a perceived perfect final result.
Perfectionism can show up in the most mundane of business activities. It can also set back your overall work progress, especially if what you’ve produced is satisfactory in nature.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a perfectionist, you may find yourself working a task or project from time to time for far longer than you absolutely need.
Where can perfectionism show up at work?
Perfectionism can show up at work in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
- Delaying or putting off delivery of a report, delivery, assignment, or project for a client or customer
- Making small, unnecessary vanity-focused tweaks, changes, and adjustments to colors, images, fonts, and words
- Missing important work deadlines and dates because of the drive to perfect one’s work
- Refusing to share required edits, drafts, sketches for feedback from others because the work is not perceived as perfect
- Spending inordinate amounts of hours, weeks, or months attempting to complete simple or basic tasks
- Obsessing over small or insignificant details that are inconsequential to work as a whole
- Ignoring urgent and important external factors, situations, and challenges at the expense of completing work
- Staying late or after hours to continuously work on projects or assignments even if they’re structurally sound
What might perfectionism signify?
Perfectionism might signify any number of things, including a sense of a lack of confidence, lack of competence, and fear of judgment in one’s professional abilities.
Lack of confidence
A lack of confidence may show up as perfectionism in that continually working on a project may give the perception that the work remains fully under your control. You can continue to confidently work on a project, assignment, or task in secret behind closed doors, without having to ever share it with anyone else for honest feedback or input.
Lack of competence
Lack of competence may show up as perfectionism in that continually working on a project may give the perception that you’re consistently making improvements and adjustments to the work. You can continually work on a project because you believe the work is getting better with each iteration. You may also have doubts as to your abilities to do the work itself.
Fear of judgment
Lastly, fear of judgment may show up as perfectionism in that continually working on a project means their work will never be viewed, and therefore not judged. You might have a fear of what others will say about the work, including the quality, quantity, materials, ideas, delivery, and what that might say about yourself, your capabilities, knowledge, and skills.
You might also be concerned with how you might appear to the other person because of your work for fear of embarrassment, shame, or discomfort.
If you feel like you’re not making progress in your daily work, my free Productivity Mindset Planner™ can help you clarify your priorities.
How does perfectionism influence your productivity?
Perfectionism can negatively influence your productivity levels in that it unnecessarily wastes your focus, time, and energy on tasks, projects, and assignments that require only satisfactory work.
Perfectionism can cause you to:
- Unnecessarily dismiss your main business, professional, and work goals
- Ignore important and urgent emergency daily matters in your business that need attention and care
- Waste countless minutes, hours, and weeks that could be used towards effectively growing your business
- Miss important opportunities and deadlines with clients, customers, vendors, and industry professionals
- Lose valuable financial resources by spending or investing more or additional money far beyond the value of a project or assignment
- Feel tired, drained, stressed, and overwhelmed throughout your workday
How can you overcome perfectionism?
If you want to overcome perfectionism, then you need to realize that perfectionism will get in the way of you successfully completing work.
By insisting that everything has to be just right or perfect before you can proceed with your work, your other work and responsibilities may inevitably fall by the wayside.
The first step in changing your mindset habits is to recognize when and where you might display perfectionist tendencies in your business and work.
Here are some helpful questions you can ask yourself to help you start on the path to overcome perfectionism:
- What types of work do I tend to spend the most time on?
- Where in my day to I tend to spend many hours polishing, honing, or improving small or otherwise indiscernible aspects of my work?
- How many versions, iterations, edits, or changes have I made on a project or assignment?
- Which projects and assignments have I pushed back at the expense of others?
- Who has stated or otherwise told me that work is satisfactory?
- How do I respond to queries for delivery status or updates on work?
Three ways to overcome perfectionism
Below are three practical tips that will help you complete tasks in a satisfactory manner and feel good about them.
Set production standards for your work
Setting production standards for your work means developing a collection of specific and detailed rules you will follow in order to complete a task or series of tasks.
Another way of viewing production standards is to view them as the guidelines that clearly define what your work will entail. The idea is simple: you develop a production standards for a task or series of tasks and follow them to the letter.
Production standards can be formally written, jotted on a sticky note, or simply kept at the top of your mind. It all depends on the tasks being performed, your familiarity with the production standard requirements, and your ability to follow the production standards themselves.
Once you create your standards, you work on the task, complete it, and move onto another task.
Physically speaking, perfection is pretty near impossible. You don’t have the time, energy, or resources to do everything perfectly. And as we all know, there’s only so many hours in a day!
Now, this isn’t a complicated exercise in and of itself and you may find it challenging to resist perfecting your work. While you can’t be everywhere at once, you can be present and mindful in the creation of your work.
Production Standard Example: Let’s say you’re concerned about writing a simple internal email announcement for your office.
Instead of insisting that the item be picture-perfect, you can set up practical guidelines to help you complete the task.
In this case, you might decide that the email covers three important points. The email must be: 1) courteous, 2) direct, and 3) brief.
Once you’ve set your guidelines, you can get to work with your writing. Once the email matches those three criteria, you can proofread it, and then send the message.
Then, it’s time to work on another assignment. Not bad, huh?
Production Standard Tip: Set production standards for at least three simple tasks you complete on a regular weekly basis.
Save your energy for the important tasks
Saving your energy for important tasks means identifying which tasks are most important and urgent in your day and then using your physical and mental energy in a way that’s most beneficial to your work.
When you do, you can appropriately reroute all the energy you would have put into the less-important task into honing and carefully crafting the more important task.
In a nutshell, it allows you to fully focus on work that is really important to you.
Having trouble understanding this point? Try taking a mini-break to properly evaluate your situation.
Stop what you’re doing and ask yourself, “Will this task really matter a week/month/year from now?”
There are times in business and work when it’s important to be discerning. Then, there are times when it’s not really all that necessary to be so discerning.
Save Your Energy Example: Let’s say you’re planning your company’s happy hour. You’re deciding between royal or peacock-blue paper napkins.
While you need to make a choice, spending several hours of your time choosing between those two colors isn’t worth your time. You should strongly reevaluate your priorities.
In this case, you can take a step back and look at the task or decision in perspective and relationship to those other tasks. There’s always more important items you can work on when it comes to planning an event.
Save Your Energy Tip: Ask a trusted colleague or friend for their unbiased opinion on how you’re spending your energy. Hopefully, they’ll give you some helpful and brutally honest feedback.
If you want to save your energy throughout the day at work, my free Productivity Mindset Planner™ can help you prioritize what matters most.
Understand that it can always be better
Understanding that your work can always be better gives you something to work towards in your profession and career. It asks you to be better at what you do every single day, no matter where you are in the process or what’s going on in your life.
No matter whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, or professional, this simple fact can be downright inspiring.
There’s always an opportunity to learn new skills, hone existing ones, utilize your talents, work on self-development, improve your business, strengthen your staff, and much more.
You might take comfort knowing that every email you write, every assignment you turn in, and every presentation you give can always be better. There is always work to be done and there is always room for improvement. Every single time.
So, do your best given the time and resources available. Yes, it can always be better, but remember, you’ve got other things to do.
It Can Always Be Better Example: Let’s say you’ve received glowing feedback from a client on a recently completed project. You are proud of your work and the client is thrilled at what you’ve accomplished.
You’re not one to simply rest on your laurels and truly want to make the most of this moment in time. Take a few minutes to think about the project and what you accomplished. Now, you’re going to get creative and let your imagination take flight!
Hypothetically speaking, what actions might you have taken in past to have produced an even better result for your client with less stress? Now, take that kernel of an idea and think about how you can apply it to your own productivity levels. How can you save time, work more efficiently, and effectively?
It Can Always Be Better Tip: At the end of every project, satisfactory or not, ask yourself these three questions, 1) What went well?, 2) What didn’t go so well?, 3) What would I do differently next time?
FAQ: Overcome perfectionism
What causes perfectionism at work?
Perfectionism at work is often a sign of low confidence, low perceived competence, or fear of judgment. Continually reworking a task can feel safer than sharing it for feedback, because it delays or bypasses the moment the work is evaluated by someone else.
How do I know if I’m a perfectionist at work?
Signs include repeatedly delaying deliverables, making small vanity edits to fonts or wording, missing deadlines to keep polishing, and resisting sharing drafts for feedback — even when the work is already satisfactory.
What are “production standards” and how do they help with perfectionism?
Production standards are a short, specific set of rules you follow to complete a task — for example, an email must be courteous, direct, and brief. Once the work meets the standard, you move on instead of continuing to refine it.
Can perfectionism hurt my business?
Yes. Perfectionism can cause missed deadlines, wasted hours, unnecessary spending, and burnout, while pulling focus away from higher-priority work and opportunities that need your attention.
How long should I spend perfecting a task?
Only as long as it takes to meet your production standard for that task. Reserve additional time and energy for work that is genuinely high-impact, and accept “satisfactory” as the finish line for lower-stakes tasks.
Conclusion
Perfectionism may seem like high standards, but more often that not, it’s a combination of fear, self-doubt, or a need for control in disguise. The fix isn’t to lower your standards, but to rather to set clear production standards, protect your energy for what matters most, and accept that “satisfactory” is sometimes good enough.
If you want a simple daily structure to help you prioritize your work without falling into perfectionist loops, my free Productivity Mindset Planner™ is a good place to start. My time management guide can help you learn how to get things done, prioritize tasks, and manage time in a meaningful way. And if you’re ready to stop perfectionism from eating into your time and energy for good, book a Strategy Session with me today.
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