Link: How to be an imperfectionist review
I think there must be quite a few affiliates, digital marketers and high performers who are on the OCD scale.
This book is about perfectionism which is very closely related or part of that scale. OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder.
I’m terrible for it. I can’t sit at a table without straightening cutlery. For some reason I feel better if a remote control is parallel with the arm of a sofa. During cooking a simple dish I might find I wash my hands about twenty times. I get really compulsive about things for about a month and then it goes
In the last year alone I’ve gone through “phases” for fishing, surfing, chess, poker, watches, domaining, various coding projects, learning Spanish/French, too many marketing and business projects to count/admit, campaigns, building stats and analytics panels, cooking, reading. There’s probably more.
Normally it’s strongest when related to learning something new or not being able to do something or getting something just right.
If this sounds familiar there’s some more info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_disorder
I’ve never thought of it as being a disadvantage and actually it helps with digital marketing. There are so many moving parts to a successful campaign that I think it helps to be obsessive about getting everything just right. But…
This book discusses some of the drawbacks of being a perfectionist. If you find yourself spending hours getting a logo just right for a company/project that has zero traffic then this might be just what you need (along with the lean startup).
Perfectionists have problems with delegation, prioritising and generally dealing the general chaos that makes up the world.
In the first part of the book Stephen Guise talks about why perfectionism holds you back and why you should be aware of your biases.
The second part discusses mini-habbits and ways you can work around the negative effects of perfectionism and become a imperfectionist.
I liked the book, he has another one which is just about how mini-habbits can help structure your life and get you to do things that you’d normally resist like dieting, exercise etc.
