A widely accepted interpretation of “The perfect is the enemy of the good” is that one might never complete a task if one has decided not to stop until it is perfect: completing the project well is made impossible by striving to complete it perfectly. An alternative interpretation is that attempts to improve something may actually make it worse. Neither the Shakespeare and Voltaire constructions suggest perfection, only improvement, lending support to this interpretation. Earlier, Aristotle, Confucius and other classical philosophers propounded the related principle of the golden mean, which counsels against extremism in general. The Pareto principle or 80–20 rule is a 20th-century analogue. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full-time to complete 80% of a task, while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort. Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficient.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
I was trained as an Electrical Engineer and spent much of my career as a Computer Programmer and later as a Webmaster. Now, after retirement, I volunteer in several ways: one as Treasurer of a nonprofit and as Database Coordinator for another nonprofit. Although many times I am paid for my web work, my nonprofit rates are very reasonable.
We strive for “perfect” when we are balancing our checkbooks but on some rare occasions it just doesn’t balance and we have to trust the bank more than our own math so we make an adjustment entry.
When dealing with name and address data, it would be nice to spell a person’s name correctly but due to illegible handwriting, that may not be possible. I often lookup the Zip+4 to verify an address. If the post office (now called the Postal Service) can’t find it in their database, maybe the street name is misspelled or an apartment number is missing. Given whatever information is currently on hand, that has to be “good enough” and we trust that a letter will be delivered. If not, the postal service will return it to the sender marked Undeliverable as Addressed. Even if the address is 100% correct, the recipient may have moved and the letter may be returned with a notation of No Forwarding Address or Forwarding Time Expired. In these cases, we may settle for “good enough” and drop that person from the mailing list.
However for important things, we should go the extra mile, striving for “perfect”. I recently sent out over 100 year-end IRS tax statements and one was returned, not with Forwarding Time Expired, but with their new address because they had recently moved. I immediately put the letter in a new envelope and paid 49 cents a second time to mail it because it was important. Had this been a postcard advertising my church’s Christmas Concert held over a month ago, “good enough” would not be to ignore the returned postcard but to take the extra time to update that person’s address in the church records.
I am well aware of the 80/20 rule, especially in nonprofit work; 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Sometimes I think that 10% of the people do 90% of the work. I don’t mind contributing my time and effort to my church or a nonprofit if there are others that are also willing to help with a project. However, if I get “stuck” doing the whole thing myself, I sometimes charge them at my nonprofit rate which is lower than the current value of volunteer labor.
Ref: https://lambertdrl.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/monetary-donation-vs-value-of-volunteer-time/
What are your experiences?
David Robert Lambert 