There’s perfectionism about results, and perfectionism about process, and these are very different. As a process perfectionist, I usually don’t care about completing a project that isn’t otherwise important to me, or even making much of a headway with it, only about approaching it in a well-researched way. Thus there is no systematic drain on effort towards unimportant activities, as they can be easily abandoned, while important activities are not abandoned and also get the serious attention to the process. On the other hand, I get less rarely encountered unimportant stuff done than usual (frequently encountered unimportant stuff eventually becomes efficient).
Activities differ by how much time I put into them, not by effort per unit of time. I’m only choosing when to not abandon an activity. Putting more effort per unit of time is not psychologically feasible long term, while putting less effort per unit of time makes activities less enjoyable, and is only of use to quickly get unfamiliar things done (which causes me some discomfort).
Ahh if it wasn’t clear when I say less effort, I wasn’t meaning “effort averaged over time”, but less absolute effort (which in your case means spending less time)
I thought my answer worked for that case as well: choosing the amount of time to spend on a project looks like choosing to not abandon the project when it should be continued (out of abstract consideration of what projects are important). The alternative, abandoning of projects, bears no emotional valence, so costs no effort.
What I mean by perfectionism is a desire for a certain unusually high level of challenge and thoroughness. It’s not about high valuation according to a more abstract or otherwise relevant measure/goal. So making a process “more perfect” in this sense means bringing challenge and thoroughness closer to the emotionally determined comfortable levels (in particular, it might involve making something less challenging if it was too challenging originally). The words “more perfect” aren’t particularly apt for this idea.
Why novel unimportant things specifically? That would be mostly about fiction/games/tv shows. Maybe I’m looking at ratings/reviews/screenshots more than typical in proportion to actually watching/reading/playing. (The games are always on impossible/deathworld/etc. difficulty and never completed.) I’m certainly aware of much more media than I’ve actually experienced, additionally because of general dislike of novel activities (for example, I’m avoiding movies altogether). This seems related, but I don’t have a specific story for the relation.
(I’ve now edited this comment about ten times, and re-read even more times, which is typical for anything longer than a couple of sentences. Thus “commenting on LW” eats up enough time to meaningfully share time budget with other fruitless entertainment such as fiction/tv shows, even when I’m commenting an order of magnitude less than I used to years ago.)
What I mean by perfectionism is a desire for a certain unusually high level of challenge and thoroughness. It’s not about high valuation according to a more abstract or otherwise relevant measure/goal. So making a process “more perfect” in this sense means bringing challenge and thoroughness closer to the emotionally determined comfortable levels (in particular, it might involve making something less challenging if it was too challenging originally). The words “more perfect” aren’t particularly apt for this idea.
There’s perfectionism about results, and perfectionism about process, and these are very different. As a process perfectionist, I usually don’t care about completing a project that isn’t otherwise important to me, or even making much of a headway with it, only about approaching it in a well-researched way. Thus there is no systematic drain on effort towards unimportant activities, as they can be easily abandoned, while important activities are not abandoned and also get the serious attention to the process. On the other hand, I get less rarely encountered unimportant stuff done than usual (frequently encountered unimportant stuff eventually becomes efficient).
What would it be look to strive for perfection in your process of choosing how much effort to put into each process?
Activities differ by how much time I put into them, not by effort per unit of time. I’m only choosing when to not abandon an activity. Putting more effort per unit of time is not psychologically feasible long term, while putting less effort per unit of time makes activities less enjoyable, and is only of use to quickly get unfamiliar things done (which causes me some discomfort).
Ahh if it wasn’t clear when I say less effort, I wasn’t meaning “effort averaged over time”, but less absolute effort (which in your case means spending less time)
I thought my answer worked for that case as well: choosing the amount of time to spend on a project looks like choosing to not abandon the project when it should be continued (out of abstract consideration of what projects are important). The alternative, abandoning of projects, bears no emotional valence, so costs no effort.
Do you think that the process by which you get to rarely encountered unimportant stuff is perfect, or could you bring more perfection to the process?
What I mean by perfectionism is a desire for a certain unusually high level of challenge and thoroughness. It’s not about high valuation according to a more abstract or otherwise relevant measure/goal. So making a process “more perfect” in this sense means bringing challenge and thoroughness closer to the emotionally determined comfortable levels (in particular, it might involve making something less challenging if it was too challenging originally). The words “more perfect” aren’t particularly apt for this idea.
Why novel unimportant things specifically? That would be mostly about fiction/games/tv shows. Maybe I’m looking at ratings/reviews/screenshots more than typical in proportion to actually watching/reading/playing. (The games are always on impossible/deathworld/etc. difficulty and never completed.) I’m certainly aware of much more media than I’ve actually experienced, additionally because of general dislike of novel activities (for example, I’m avoiding movies altogether). This seems related, but I don’t have a specific story for the relation.
(I’ve now edited this comment about ten times, and re-read even more times, which is typical for anything longer than a couple of sentences. Thus “commenting on LW” eats up enough time to meaningfully share time budget with other fruitless entertainment such as fiction/tv shows, even when I’m commenting an order of magnitude less than I used to years ago.)
Ahh interesting, thanks for sharing!