Would you consider yourself a closet "perfectionist"?

[NormannTheDoorman]

I have learned the ways of proper thread creating during my 1 week exile to the 7th circle 1st ring of hell. Forgive me for sinning against thee.


Now onto the topic.

This is from my personal experience, but I am hoping you can relate. If not then I'm by myself in this cruel and dark world.


During writing assignments we are normally told to write a rough draft. The rough draft is where you can make mistakes, and in a way goof around. I find it difficult to make a mistake when writing rough drafts.

I often find myself looking over the aesthetics of some of my work just to make sure every minute detail is perfect in my eyes.

My work space is normally messy, but when I try to organize I usually end up over-thinking about organizing. To the point of every single object being its own category.

Sometimes when I try to organize I begin to think of how I can organize. Not just by subject, but by size, content, creation date, finishing date, and on occasion "importance" of the object.


Several times people have called me a perfectionist, not that I really understood what that meant. Can any of you relate?


EDIT:

To expand on why I use the term closet perfectionist:

You want to perfect things but you're overwhelmed by what could be done so you procrastinate.

 

[Redfire]

You don't need to put a name on it, that's called "maladaptive perfectionism".

There is adaptive perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism. In the first case it gives you motivation to keep working until it's "just perfect". I only do this on math or programming problems, otherwise I find it very hard to define perfection. In the second case you stop working because you prefer not doing anything than doing something imperfect. You also focus on irrelevant details instead of the actual problem you are trying to solve.

I guess it depends on your standards. Surely some people keep cleaning their house till it's "just perfect". I clean my house till it's "sort of ok". Why? Because I don't care about it as much as I care about math or programming. I just don't want to live in filth.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

You don't need to put a name on it, that's called "maladaptive perfectionism".

In the second case you stop working because you prefer not doing anything than doing something imperfect. You also focus on irrelevant details instead of the actual problem you are trying to solve.

That describes me when it comes to organization.

 

[Base groove]

Yeah I can relate. When I was younger and had documents to submit there would be times when I would spend two or three times as much time gazing and re-reading my piece than I would actually writing it.

I would get in trouble in elementary school at times when I failed to provide a 'rough draft' that was full of mistakes and whatnot, when it was required as part of the exercise.

 

[BigApplePi]

Perfect means without flaw and complete, both. We are already perfect because everything we do is everything we are and it can be no other way for the moment we are in.

Perfect always has to be about something. Name that something and it is perfect. If that something is compared to something else, and that something else is different, you discover something. You discover the original something isn't up to the standards of that other something. Therefore you are deceived into thinking something is imperfect.

Notice the perfection of these statements. Notice if the prior statement is compared to the statement which follows no comparison need necessarily be made. By making such a comparison you are deceived into imperfection.

 

[kris]

By making such a comparison you are deceived into imperfection

It's not deception; the term is contextual by default. Perfection isn't an inherent attribute of objects (not that you are claiming it is), but rather a evaluative concept applied to an object considered in the context of a given system. An object considered without such context is not perfect; it simply is. If that's how you'd like consider things, that's rad, but evaluating a term outside of its intended use won't render anything meaningful.

Apologies if I've misunderstood something.

 

[kris]

I only relate a little bit. I am not a perfectionist, but I do have a tendency to want to view things as systems and principles. The way I was taught to do rough drafts never worked for me for that reason. I could appear to be a perfectionist to some because, at a glance, it would appear as if I was trying to always weed out minor imperfections as I went through my initial drafts.

That's not what I was actually doing though. In truth, I was trying to arrange my thoughts into something which fit a system of principles while I was also trying to apply that system. It was clumsy, inefficient, and required constant revision. Unfortunately, it leads to greater overall inconsistency in my writing because I can't hit a natural rhythm. I keep breaking my train of thought while writing, and when I pick up from where I left off, I end up with something disjointed. It's the same disjointed writing I tend to produce on internet forums.

What I actually needed was refinement in my concept phase, and then I could largely skip the "rough" draft and produce a first draft which was much closer to a first or second revision.

 

[Methodician]

I relate in certain areas. For instance, organizing my "things" in life. I tend to overwhelm myself at the very idea of organization and devise all kinds of techniques and procedures only to walk away and throw up my arms, leaving my items in disarray or just "getting them out of the way" so I can live. When I do get down to it, I take way too long to organize things and when I'm done it's great, for a while, then entropy gradually does its thing.

When it comes to writing assignments and such I've learned to follow the rough-draft procedure quite literally. I'll usually start with an outline, then I'll fill in a bunch of wordy junk, then I'll read and re-read it a number of times, checking my validity, reasoning, semantics, and the general aesthetics and eloquence of the document, relocating paragraphs and fine tuning sentences until it's just right. This is really the best way.

 

[BigApplePi]

It's not deception; the term is contextual by default. Perfection isn't an inherent attribute of objects (not that you are claiming it is), but rather a evaluative concept applied to an object considered in the context of a given system. An object considered without such context is not perfect; it simply is. If that's how you'd like consider things, that's rad, but evaluating a term outside of its intended use won't render anything meaningful.

Agreed. I was taking a rad-ical view.

One may take their activities within a context. Actually there are layers of contexts, each with their own import. Let's say my activity is to win a war and the context is the war. Then if my activity falls short or is actually promotes losing, my activity is imperfect. If I fire a bullet into enemy lines and all agree that was the right thing to do, my behavior is perfect. However if in training I decide to slack off, my behavior is imperfect also but I need not reprimand myself as if I'm imperfect, so what? It won't affect the war much.

 

[nexion]

I prefer to think of the perfectionism-procrastination loop as a sort of unconscious brainstorming, taking the necessary information and putting together how it should look before doing even one thing. I almost always look at and think about descriptions for any given problem longer than it actually takes me to produce that solution after I have an idea of how it should be.

The idea of a rough draft achieves similar ends, I think, but it seems to work in the opposite direction: the goal of a rough draft is to follow particular data flows by exploring them in an external manifestation. More often than not, however, I find myself having the entire general narrative within my mind, and then my 'rough draft' quickly segues into a final product, as the only real modifications I ever have to make is in finding a specific way to say something to suit my purposes.

I don't really consider myself a closet perfectionist though; I have definite perfectionist streaks which I will unabashedly admit to having. This is most obvious in my speech, whether verbalized or written, where I very carefully choose my words to as exactly as possible say what it is I am trying to say. Substituting exactly what I am thinking with analogous words or phrases is oftentimes not sufficient for me, because that fails to impart the exact meaning I intended to, ie. it tends to make the meaning more vague relative to what I wanted to say.

I'm also kind of a perfectionist in consistency between ideas, in my own bizarre way that I couldn't begin to explain.

The only real external expression of this thought pattern is in my filesystem hierarchy, and even then it only goes so far. I have at least a half dozen of "misc" folders littered throughout my four hard drives and even larger number of flash drives, containing files that I have no clue what to do with or just don't want to do anything with... yet, but my Music and Video folders are very pedantically organized, and in the formers case, all of my files have entirely consistent and correct metadata. My idea is for the folder structure to be entirely self-sufficient, but also for the tags to be entirely correct so applications can output proper data. I have an action set up in mp3tag to automatically move the files into the proper folder structure so long as all of the tags are correct. I always embed album artwork with max dimensions of 320x320 and export them as jpgs into the album folders.

I always seem to be producing more files and I am always working on my folder hierarchy so it will be better and more complete. The only reason for all the misc folders is because I can't be assed to categorize files all the time.

In categorizing anything, unlike how it seems for the OP, my goal is simplicity, ie. having as few categories and subcategories as possible. I create standard categories and then have a single catch-all miscellaneous category. The other thing about my method of categorization is that the least things I have to categorize, the better. In that way, I am purposely looking for reasons to get rid of things, so my method of categorization is kind of minimal in these regards.

But wait, isn't this thread about perfectionism? I have some, but it's not really any people would tend to notice. Almost everything I do is in a constant state of disarray, and I continually live in a state of chaos. The perfectionism exists mostly within my own mind, creating my own system distinctly separate from the external chaos that enables me to navigate through all of it fairly quickly. Anyone else would have no idea because it is very much mine, but the whole thing works more like a whirlwind than anything.

tl;dr: I can be a perfectionist but I do it in my way that is completely incomprehensible to anyone else.

 

[Chocobana]

Perfect means without flaw and complete, both. We are already perfect because everything we do is everything we are and it can be no other way for the moment we are in.

Perfect always has to be about something. Name that something and it is perfect. If that something is compared to something else, and that something else is different, you discover something. You discover the original something isn't up to the standards of that other something. Therefore you are deceived into thinking something is imperfect.

Notice the perfection of these statements. Notice if the prior statement is compared to the statement which follows no comparison need necessarily be made. By making such a comparison you are deceived into imperfection.

You do make some radical statements but I can't really follow your logic. Let me try to rephrase this the way I understood it: so when an object is not compared to anything, it is perfect on its own, but when we do compare it to another, it only appears to be imperfect? I also didn't get the war example.

"We are already perfect because everything we do is everything we are and it can be no other way for the moment we are in." I hope you explain this part. It makes no sense at all like this.

----

All this discussion about perfection made me think of Plato and Aristotle's ideas in regards to perfection and what is ideal.

From our ability to recognize forms even with changes occurring to them, Plato reasoned that there must be some higher, abstract Forms of things that exist in reality (and reality being that transcendent world which we only live in its shadow). I find Plato's Theory of Forms really fascinating as it proposes that the ideals and forms we have in our world are merely imperfections (bad replicas) when compared to their 'real' form. We could develop the idea even further by labeling those perfect forms as the images and concepts found in our subconscious, vastly superior to what we know in our world because they are not restrained by the physicality of our world.

Aristotle had a more practical take on perfection and gave three simple definitions for "that which is perfect": is complete — which contains all the requisite parts; is so good that nothing of the kind could be better; has attained its purpose.

I'm actually open to both ideas. Aristotle was true to type and has tried to give perfection a definition while Plato has given perfection a vast meaning. Raphael really got those two down. But anyhow, it all depends on perspective.

 

[Chocobana]

As for the real question, I am a perfectionist (the maladaptive kind) and I've displayed those signs since an early age. My mom told me that even as a kindergarten kid, I would refuse to go to bed without having finished all my homework (what a weird kid). When I was in elementary school and my mom was impatient with me (that still happens a lot ), I would go and study for tests on my own even without her help.

But the thing that comes with this is lack of productivity and major procrastination. If I have a big assignment, I worry about it so much I'd rather postpone it to the end. When I'm not prepared for something, I hyperventilate (and that's why I dislike surprises immensely). I have to plan for everything first so I feel in control of the situation. It's sheer madness.

And don't get me started on those things called 'drafts'. Whether or not I pass a writing course in college majorly depends on the type of instructor I get. Those that demand drafts (and not just one) of an essay way before the final draft I could never get along with. If I am going to write an essay, I'm going to proofread and edit it many times as I write it--I can't just 'let the words flow' and 'weed out what is not needed later'.

Man, this makes it seem like those perfectionist types have a lot of issues. And they do. We do. Ugh.

 

[Aerl]

As I was little I organized stuff by shape, later in more complex way. Some time afterwards I had great trouble trying to understand what is the best way to organize and began to procrastinate. Some more time passed and I no longer cared about organizing because I couldn't do it, and only recently I understood that no matter how messy something is or how it is arraged or put, everything is arranged in the most perfect way possible. My thinking went full chaotic , a regular observer would say. To me... it's never been more perfect!

 

[peoplesuck]

When it comes to art, like drawing definitely.It looks wrong even when its right :/

 

[Koosy]

If something I want to be perfect isn't, and I can't make it perfect, I either completely destroy or deny it.

 

[StevenM]

I always strive to do the best I can with anything that I am motivated in doing. However, I do not let the consequential mistakes and imperfections result into feelings of anxiety and depression. I try to be aware of my mistakes when I can, and casually learn from them. Again, the best that I can.

 

[grayskies]

No, I'm outwardly a perfectionist and don't even try to hide it. I've learned to contain myself at work and with others because most people are the exact opposite....but if something isn't right...it will bug me until it's addressed.

 

[Pyropyro]

I cycle from being very too hard on myself to procrastinating sloth mode. I never strive to be perfect since it's kind of pointless.