"Quality is in the eye of the beholder"

Our assumptions mold our behavior. We have all grown up learning to do our personal best, and that "good enough isn't good enough." There even used to be an award at my work - the GENI award "Good Enough Never Is."

Yet, we have also be been frustrated by people taking much longer to finish a task. Part of the reason it is taking them longer is that they are striving for perfection. If that perfection does not matter to you, the receiver of the work, then that work is wasted. I remember coaching members of my team to give me a one day assignment in one day (with the quality that I expected), rather than in one week (with perfect quality). At school we had to make compromises - at work we have to make compromises, so why not in personal life?

While this rule applies most of the time, there are exceptions too. Sometimes you have to educate the beholder. This is also known as managing expectations - your own or someone else's.

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Thanks to Jeff Wildfogel and his "Creating Breakthroughs" class at Stanford University for much of the content above.