When I first heard this was the Facebook HQ's motto, I was a somewhat dismayed. I am their valued customer, confound them, and I deserve to have a perfect website that meets my social networking needs perfectly. How dare they fob me off?!
But then I gave it more thought. If the Facebook team did everything perfectly, it would take them forever to get anything done. They would never be able to deliver a useful, productive social networking site; it would only be able to do a couple of things perfectly and the rest not at all. They also couldn't afford to keep membership free - a change that would probably lose them a vast swathe of users.
The "done" bit of this maxim is also important. No one is suggesting you should be slapdash or leave things unfinished. The work still has to be done and finished and good...enough.
As I learn how to be a copywriter, "done is better than perfect" has been a great help. Yes, I have to write things and write them well. Spelling and grammar have to be correct and the whole piece has to be readable. But no one is going to write an A-level essay about this blog, for example. I'm not expecting it to be shortlisted for the Booker prize. This is not the only blog I have to write this week and if I mess around making it perfect, I'll miss my deadlines. Instead I ask, "is it good enough?" Yes it is.
Are there areas of your work you spend too much time on? I've seen "done is better than perfect" apply to Facebook and copywriting - could it apply to your business too?
