Paralysis

My husband, AVC, wrote about analysis paralysis on his blog and I keep thinking about what he wrote.   This is something that drives me up a wall.  Perhaps it is just how people are hard wired.  They have a need to analyze everything so many times that they aren’t even sure where they started.  Should I do it, shouldn’t I do it, does that look good, will it make sense, let me sit on that for a few weeks, maybe I can do better, etc.  UGH!

I am a decision maker, always have been.  The AVC is one too.  We come to conclusions completely differently.  Fred tends to hang on to his decisions a little longer than I do but not a very long period of time.  Perhaps my brain just thinks in a way that allows me to take in information quickly and make a decision.  Not that all of my decisions have been good but on the other hand the majority of them have been right on. 

I have no fear of making a bad decision realizing that I can always make another decision if the decision I made wasn’t the right one.  Also, I like moving forward vs. idling.  There is nothing worse than doing nothing. 

I am also not a fan of people who work 80 hours a week and could get the same amount accomplished in 60.  Maybe that extra 20 hours would accomplish the project or business doing better by 5%.  Is it worth that 5% vs. a life balance.  I don’t think so.  I believe that the majority of people who are working like that have a hard time making decisions and balancing their time appropriately.  Can you learn to balance better? 

One of my favorite quotes is from Soviet Admiral Gorshkov who said "Perfect is the enemy of good enough".   Striving for perfection is great but realistically good enough is pretty damn good. 

Comments (Archived):

  1. Magic Man

    If you are into yoga and meditation then you should know that doing nothing is often extremely difficult to achieve and can help achieve balance – as you strive – in your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the yin and the yang. Andrew Weil has a great CD, “Meditation for Optimum Health” about this. So doing nothing can be much harder than doing anything. But it seems like you’re doing ok, whatever you’re doing.

  2. Dee

    “GE” is an abbreviation I use frequently in my current job. Yes, it’s become apparent to me that GOOD ENOUGH, aka GE is very important when you feel yourself trying to get several steps ahead of something that is pretty much out of reach.