Don’t Chase Perfect Solutions When Good Enough Works

You’ve spent two weeks tweaking your slide deck—fonts, chart colors, the perfect quote. Meanwhile the presentation deadline looms closer. You realize you’re ensnared by perfectionism, endless edits chasing a 100% ideal that may not even exist. Time to call it off.

Computer science offers a way out. In scheduling theory and search algorithms, there’s the concept of ‘satisficing.’ Rather than compute the perfect answer—for which you might have no efficient algorithm—you aim for one that’s ‘good enough’ by a clear, minimal standard. It frees you from the tyranny of optimal solutions you’ll never reach.

So you decide your deck only needs to score 80% on clarity, visual appeal, and key messages. You scroll through your current slides, and at slide 17 you realize it already checks those boxes. You stop editing, save the file, and move on. You’ve traded infinite fine-tuning for a result that meets your needs and frees you up for the next priority.

That decision to satisfice, rather than optimize, is a deliberate relaxation of goals. It saves you from gridlock, so you actually get more done—often with higher quality work overall, because you avoid last-minute rushes and mental exhaustion.

Set a clear ‘good enough’ benchmark for your project—say, 80% coverage of your goals—and limit yourself to evaluating only a handful of options. Once you hit that threshold, stop searching and move forward. Hold off on any more tweaks unless your needs change. This approach will stop perfectionism from paralyzing you and deliver solid results on schedule—try satisficing today.