One of the best pieces of career advice I ever got, right at the beginning of my career, was from one of the worst bosses I ever had (he was at least in the bottom three and there are credible arguments for giving him the #1-worst slot).

He watched me working, working, working on some small task — a script or a web page or a config file, something that today I’d knock out in five minutes. And the thing was, I was basically *done* within a few minutes of starting — but I kept gnawing at it, adjusting this and that, trying to make it *even better*. And finally he said “It’s plenty good enough. *Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.*”

And that one sentence is the single best piece of work advice I ever got. I’m naturally a fidgeter and a poker and I’m never happy with the thing just achieving 100% of the goal. And he saw that and addressed it directly, even empathetically. And I’ve carried that through my career in the 26 years since and done the best and gotten the most consistent accolades when I remember to apply it.

Send the e-mail. Push the commit. Run the demo. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough, and past a certain point *moving forward* is the more important thing.