How I stopped polishing, and started publishing. Because sometimes done really is better than perfect.
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My name is Sheryl, and I’m a perfectionist.
I was a magazine editor, for much of my working life. It’s a job where content is key, ideas your currency. You only get one chance a month to impress your readers, so you want to make it count.
Once the words and pictures are on the page, it’s all about the detail. The headlines and captions, spelling and grammar, the paragraph breaks, typography and the turn arrows.
You don’t get a second chance at this: once the issue goes to press, any mistakes are permanent. It’s easy to become obsessive. And I did.
(Though the perfectionist in me also wants to be honest and admit that deadlines being deadlines, there were still plenty of mistakes!)
This is what my perfectionism has looked like, over the years.
Great ideas for books I didn’t write because I didn’t think I knew enough.
Repainting the bedroom walls in our first flat again and again until I got the precise shade of dark blue I’d imagined. Then not changing the…
