Many people who are determined to be successful (aren’t we all!) often hinder their own success by letting their perfectionist tendencies get the best of them. As a flourishing court reporter climbing the ladder of success, the last thing you want to do is stand in your own way. A spreading ‘manifesto’ known as the ‘Done Manifesto’ was created by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark. In this blog, we’ll touch on a few ways you can use the manifesto to break free from perfectionist ways and get more things accomplished in your work day.

What exactly is the ‘Done Manifesto’?

It’s a quick list of profoundly simple ways to allow oneself to stop chasing after perfection and get moving when trying to finish a task or project. The Done Manifesto promotes the following beliefs:

  1. There are three states of being: 1. Not knowing 2. Action 3. Completion.
  2. Accepting that everything is a draft helps to get it done.
  3. There is no “editing stage.”
  4. Pretending you know what you are doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
  5. Banish procrastination! If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
  6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
  7. Once you’re done you can throw it away!
  8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
  9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
  10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes!
  11. Destruction is a variant of done.
  12. If you have an idea and publish it on the Internet, that counts as a “ghost” of done.
  13. “Done” is the engine of more.

The importance of perfectionism

Of course, many of these are to be taken with an attitude and understanding of the importance of perfectionism and the constructive role is plays in our work lives. In most cases, submitting sub-par quality work will not be accepted and completing a transcript that is riddled with errors will likely earn you harsh feedback, so a healthy dose of perfectionism is often highly-regarded. In the case of this manifesto, the authors are referring to the workdays where you find yourself so deep in the perfectionism weeds that you find yourself not completing all your responsibilities because you are simply too focused on the details you’ve likely already overcome.

Not a free pass!

The Done Manifesto can be a source of inspiration and relief when tackling your workload and can help you avoid over-analyzing tasks. Although the Done Manifesto brings relief and inspires many people to simply complete the tasks at hand and stop impeding progress by over-focusing on details that have already been resolved, it is important to remember that the manifesto is not to be used as a free pass to submit less-than-stellar work. Use the Done Manifesto principals alongside your efforts to do your best on every task and you will find yourself more successful than ever.

Do your best and then move on

The Done Manifesto tells you to do your best – always – but when you find yourself stuck in a place of ultimate self-doubt or “analysis paralysis”, the manifesto reminds us to allow work to be completed to the best of our abilities with maximum effort behind it and then move on to the next pressing task. Above all, the Done Manifesto pushes the importance of progress over stressing about the details that you’ve likely already sorted out. When you move through your list of tasks and stacks of depositions to complete while remembering progress over perfection, you will always get more done and your work will always be completed well – as long as you put forth the effort required and do your due diligence in ensuring it is to the best of your capability. If you know you’ve put your best effort into every task, you can avoid falling into the destructive trap of over-thinking, perfectionism qualities that so many of us harbor.

Source: Bre Pettis and Kio Stark