One always finds three types of people in this world. One category of people go overboard in their pursuit of perfection, while another set of people believe in doing or getting things fast. The third category of people do not believe in doing things fast or believe in being perfect because their policy is life is very simple in that the fact that they do not believe in doing anything for they are too lazy in life to do anything. Let us focus only on the category of people who either believe in perfection or speed.
People who believe in Speed: There are people who by nature are very instinctive and would like want to complete a fast well before time even if there is no deadline or has sufficient task at their disposal. Then there are some people who are compelled to do things fast as they are intimated of assignments to be completed at a very short notice. Another factor is that in today's fast paced life expectations of a person from us are very high. All these reasons require a person to do things very fast. The risk of doing thing things fast is it leads to mistakes irrespective of the fact whether it is our own initiative to satisfy ourselves or others or being compelled to do so.
In pursuit of Perfection:- There are people who by nature want to attain perfection as it gives them a great sense of satisfaction. People aim at perfection even to please others or to be rated highly by others. Nothing gives a person more pleasure than being complimented or being talked about for being perfect. Again to be perfect a person has to sacrifice one thing i.e. speed, because a person aiming for perfection can never perform his tasks in a stipulated time frame.
It is easy to advise a person to strike a balance between being perfect without compromising on speed. How this is practically not possible in a general approach towards life. However the best way of striking a balance would be to identify things which need speed and identify things wherein perfection is more important. Some suggestions are given below:-
Example 1 A mechanics aim in life should be perfection. The safety of the person driving the vehicle totally depends on the perfection of the mechanic. Even if a client is in a hurry to get vehicle repaired from the mechanic, it is the duty of mechanic to convince the client that he needs a sufficient length of time to repair it perfectly. On the other hand if the mechanic has more orders and limited time the mechanic should still focus on perfection and to compensate for loss of orders due to lack of time he can increase his charges by 10 or 15%.
A clerks aim should be to do things faster:- The requirement from an clerk of an organization is to do things faster rather than focus too much on perfection. Even if a mistake happens it can always be reconciled and money taken back from clients or vice versa. If a clerk focuses too much on perfection the company could even lose orders because time is most important thing in today's world. Usually in most organizations clients have regular dealings with the same organization and therefore a mistake occured doing focus on speed can always be rectified. The clerk needs to look at perfection and sacrifice speed only if he is dealing with a customer who is not likely to transact with his organization.
We have to be perfect in areas where we are required to be and be fast as and when the situation needs. The key factors lies in identifying as to which area of activities requires us to be perfect and which areas demand us to act fast.
Regards
Satish