I've been called a perfectionist all through my life and told to try to loosen up a bit. I didn't know there was an ism about it though.
Roughly every fortnight I get 'telephone support' and a few days later things start to arrive in the post that I am to read and consider and reflect on and report back on in the next 'session'. Yesterday I was sent a 7-page print-out titled 'Perfectionism'. Normally I have to force myself to read these things as they are invariably written for an alien race. A race with no personal insight, common sense or intellect. Scanning the first page of this one however, my brain computed 6 percentage signs, one of which followed the number 100. Aaah, 100%. My attention was gained, and so I proceeded to read the whole thing.
Very interesting.
Firstly, it described the Pareto Principle. This is something I hadn't heard of. In terms of perfectionism, it means that 20% of my efforts deliver 80% of my results, leaving 80% of my efforts to deliver the final 20%.
The parallel I am about to draw has actually scared me a little.
Blog quote 1 titled '100%':
of 5% of 100%.
That is to say that I have written what I consider to be a perfect answer to a 5 mark question, when I only have 2 days left to do the other 95 marks, of which I have completed 0%.
Idiot.
BUT... I have at least started. Thumbs up?
Blog quote 2, aptly titled '20% of 100% and 100% of nothing':
Progress? Guess so.
20% properly completed. Nothing more to do there.
But the remaining 80% is sort of the whole assignment, in a way. It's the big question.
So what am I to make of that?! It seems I discovered this principle all by myself! It took me around 4 days to do that first 20%, all the time knowing that I could achieve the remaining 80% by pulling an all-nighter. Using time to represent effort it again almost exactly equates, spending about 40 hours answering my perfect 20% and about 10 hours completing the remaining 80%.
What this means? Well, the result can feasibly be 100%. There are 50 hours available; the effort. 1% of effort is therefore half an hour. For the first 80 marks, each mark represents 7.5 minutes of my time, or 0.25% of my effort. For the final 20 marks, each mark represents 120 minutes of my time, or a huge 4% of my effort. So each of the marks I need to get a distinction are 16 times more difficult to achieve than the marks I need to get a pass, or even a merit. I genuinely find that very interesting, particularly as I had already highlighted this as a trait of mine. The fact that in this particular case the numbers work so well only adds to my interest. 120 minutes compared to 7.5 is phenomenal. And ridiculous. And true.
Anyway, I went on to read the rest to discover it was basically a very disparaging account of the life of the perfectionist. Not as I had imagined, that they are prone to great success and high achievement, but rather that they are fearful, self-deprecating beings that deny themselves positive feelings and are prone to failure. Lovely.
I am in the process of being cognitively rewired at the moment. Or at least they are trying to. So it will be interesting to see if by the time I start my studies next year I have a different approach and am happy to spend those 2400 minutes in more pleasurable antics. Could end up costing me a fortune in pub money though. I'll have to get a few hobbies or something. Designing games maybe. I hear laughter. It's mine I think.
Perfectionism
I've been called a perfectionist all through my life and told to try to loosen up a bit. I didn't know there was an ism about it though.
Roughly every fortnight I get 'telephone support' and a few days later things start to arrive in the post that I am to read and consider and reflect on and report back on in the next 'session'. Yesterday I was sent a 7-page print-out titled 'Perfectionism'. Normally I have to force myself to read these things as they are invariably written for an alien race. A race with no personal insight, common sense or intellect. Scanning the first page of this one however, my brain computed 6 percentage signs, one of which followed the number 100. Aaah, 100%. My attention was gained, and so I proceeded to read the whole thing.
Very interesting.
Firstly, it described the Pareto Principle. This is something I hadn't heard of. In terms of perfectionism, it means that 20% of my efforts deliver 80% of my results, leaving 80% of my efforts to deliver the final 20%.
The parallel I am about to draw has actually scared me a little.
Blog quote 1 titled '100%':
of 5% of 100%.
That is to say that I have written what I consider to be a perfect answer to a 5 mark question, when I only have 2 days left to do the other 95 marks, of which I have completed 0%.
Idiot.
BUT... I have at least started. Thumbs up?
Blog quote 2, aptly titled '20% of 100% and 100% of nothing':
Progress? Guess so.
20% properly completed. Nothing more to do there.
But the remaining 80% is sort of the whole assignment, in a way. It's the big question.
So what am I to make of that?! It seems I discovered this principle all by myself! It took me around 4 days to do that first 20%, all the time knowing that I could achieve the remaining 80% by pulling an all-nighter. Using time to represent effort it again almost exactly equates, spending about 40 hours answering my perfect 20% and about 10 hours completing the remaining 80%.
What this means? Well, the result can feasibly be 100%. There are 50 hours available; the effort. 1% of effort is therefore half an hour. For the first 80 marks, each mark represents 7.5 minutes of my time, or 0.25% of my effort. For the final 20 marks, each mark represents 120 minutes of my time, or a huge 4% of my effort. So each of the marks I need to get a distinction are 16 times more difficult to achieve than the marks I need to get a pass, or even a merit. I genuinely find that very interesting, particularly as I had already highlighted this as a trait of mine. The fact that in this particular case the numbers work so well only adds to my interest. 120 minutes compared to 7.5 is phenomenal. And ridiculous. And true.
Anyway, I went on to read the rest to discover it was basically a very disparaging account of the life of the perfectionist. Not as I had imagined, that they are prone to great success and high achievement, but rather that they are fearful, self-deprecating beings that deny themselves positive feelings and are prone to failure. Lovely.
I am in the process of being cognitively rewired at the moment. Or at least they are trying to. So it will be interesting to see if by the time I start my studies next year I have a different approach and am happy to spend those 2400 minutes in more pleasurable antics. Could end up costing me a fortune in pub money though. I'll have to get a few hobbies or something. Designing games maybe. I hear laughter. It's mine I think.