The Superhuman: why procrastination is your excuse for not being perfect

You set the bar high. For yourself, and to be honest, for others too. For you, a task isn’t finished until it’s absolutely spot on, and ‘absolutely spot on’ is a goal that’s rarely achieved in practice. So you put off finishing it, redo things, and keep tweaking something that was already good enough for its intended purpose.

There’s a hidden benefit to that procrastination, even if it doesn’t feel like it whilst you’re in the thick of it. If you hand something in at the very last moment, you’ve got an explanation ready straight away if it isn’t perfect: there simply wasn’t any time left to make it even better. That’s much easier on your self-esteem than the thought that you *did* have plenty of time, did everything you could, and yet the result still wasn’t perfect. In this way, without you realising it, procrastination becomes a sort of protection against the idea that you might fail, even if you’d given it your all.

Why this happens

The crux of the matter is that your self-esteem is strongly linked to your performance. The benchmark isn’t ‘I’ve done my best’, but ‘the result is perfect’ – and that second standard is a bar that virtually no one can clear. Fear of failure plays a bigger role here than laziness or disinterest, even though, from the outside, procrastination might look like indifference. Nothing could be further from the truth: you’re actually very concerned about how things look.

The strength you mustn’t lose

Superhumans almost always work thoroughly and have a keen eye for detail. This is a real advantage, particularly when it comes to tasks involving the processing of large amounts of information, such as a course of study or a detailed report. You’re also often good at planning, even if your goals are sometimes a bit idealistic: you’re excellent at drawing up schedules, and you get quite far in carrying them out, until perfectionism throws a spanner in the works.

What could you do differently tomorrow?

Before you start your next task, consciously decide on a ‘good enough’ version in advance, and write it down in concrete terms. For example: this report is finished when it clearly conveys the three main points and is error-free, not when every sentence feels polished and every paragraph has been rewritten three times. As soon as you reach that point, hand it in, even if your fingers are still itching to tweak it further. The discomfort you feel at that moment is precisely the signal that you’re doing well, not a sign that you’ve left something out.

Do you find yourself redoing a task for the third time without the content actually changing? That’s a signal, not a sign of thoroughness. At that point, you’re not improving it; you’re postponing the moment of letting go, disguised as quality control.

One final thought: ask yourself what the actual consequence would be if this piece of work were an ‘8’ rather than a ‘10’. Often, in practice , that consequence isn’t nearly as bad as you might think, and that realisation alone can help you let go more quickly next time.

Is this you? See if you are, with my free test to determine your procrastination type.