When “Good Enough” Is Better Than Your Best

Untitled, Anne Kearney

Whoever came up with the proverb, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” must have had a lot of time on their hands.

Doing your best work and making the “best” decisions take a surprising amount of time and mental energy. I, for one, have been known to spend hours online researching the best of things that aren’t that important in the long run – like immersion blenders or oven cleaner.

Although many of us feel pressure to be perfect, sometimes it’s ok to just be “good enough.” That’s what American psychologist Herbert Simon had in mind when he coined the term “satisficing” – a combination of satisfy and suffice – all the way back in the 1950s. The idea was radical among economic theorists who assumed that people make – or at least should strive to make – optimal decisions. But Simon was simply describing the way that many regular people make decisions in a world without perfect information or infinite time.

Still, in our era of Instagram-able images and messaging, the urge to do things perfectly can be hard to shake. But shake it we should. Fretting over the “right” choice and spending time making things as close to perfect as possible is not only stressful but it can lead to decision-making paralysis — meaning that we don’t get anything done. It can also make people unhappy with the decisions they finally do make.

I’m not advocating that we do everything with a “good enough” attitude. There are times when doing your absolute best is the way to go. Medical treatment, for example, is worth spending time and effort on optimizing and then putting in energy to make the best of your decision.

So how do you decide when to optimize, when to satisfice, and when to let go altogether?

I’ve been giving this some thought while prepping and organizing for my solo art show. There are hundreds of tasks and decisions that underlie an art exhibition – from making the artwork itself, to devising a marketing plan, to deciding what font to use for signage. With so many things to do it’s just not possible to do everything perfectly. To try and do so would likely mean failing on the overall project or having a nervous breakdown.

Finding a Way Through the Forest of Tasks and Decisions

I asked myself several key questions as a way to both know where best to spend my time and to make peace with giving some things less than my best effort.

What’s the big picture? Without clarity on your overall goals, it’s hard to know where to best spend your time and energy. Asking yourself, “Is this the best I can do?” is only useful if doing your best on that thing serves your bigger goal. Otherwise, you might be better off asking yourself, “Is this good enough?” Or even better, “Do I really need to do this at all?”

Before I got too deep into the planning of my show, I spent time free-writing about my goals. This show for me is about sharing my work. I want my work to put its best foot forward. I want to expand my audience, give people a good viewing experience, and give them some insight into the meaning and inspiration behind my work.

What’s the best bang for your time and energy buck? Is doing your best on a particular task necessary for reaching your goals or will “good enough” suffice? Once I had my overall goals in mind, I was able to approach individual tasks and decisions by looking at the bigger picture and deciding where my time and energy was going to have the biggest payoff.

The artwork itself? Definitely an area for optimizing. My most important goal for the show is sharing my artwork and I want that work to be as good as I can make it. This meant that I spent time making tweaks to pieces that maybe only I would notice. For me, this was worth it.

Printing flyers for the show? Satisficing was the way to go. I went to a little copy shop near me and used the paper they had even though it wasn’t ideal. I could have spent more time and money going elsewhere but that wouldn’t have served my goal of broadening my audience any better than the “good enough” flyers.

What are the costs? It’s easy to focus on how much better we could do something without considering the costs of this extra effort. Collecting more information and comparing a multitude of options can be mentally fatiguing, leaving less energy for other things. Spending more time on one task invariably means that you have less time for other things — things that might be more important in the long run. Are these costs worth it for the benefits that you think you’ll get?

Baking something for my “meet the artist” talk? Big no. Part of me feels that I “should” do this, but the extra bit it might add to someone’s viewing experience is not worth the stress I know it will cause me.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing in terms of my show prep and there are some things I know I’ve spent too much time on. But these three questions have been a good framework for making the most of my limited time and energy. I am still chipping away at my to-do list, but by skimping on some things, maximizing others, and letting go of the unnecessary, I’m starting to believe that it will come together.

Although people in the “whatever is worth doing is worth doing well” camp may disagree, sometimes “good enough” is better than your best.

Are you an optimizer or a satisficer?