is worth doing half-assed. It is a basic principle of efficiency and economy: do no more than necessary. What would be the point of doing more than is necessary? Unless there is some sort of bonus for doing more than clearing the bar, in which case you just have tiers of “necessary,” you are wasting effort. Do you know what another term is for “more than enough”? Too much.
Once you have reached “acceptable,” accept it.
You spend 90% of your time dealing with 10% of the problem (or 80/20 or 95/5 or whatever aphorism you like that conveniently adds to 100%). Learn to ignore that 10%. You can have one thing that is 100% effective or ten things that are 90% effective. Better yet, if the chances for failure are independent, you have a 99% of getting it to work in two tries. You can live with pushing the button twice every now and again. Look how many more buttons you have!
If 100% effectiveness is mission-critical, sure, you must spend all that time and make it work right. If occasionally pushing the button three times is okay, you can accomplish so much more and still have 99.9% acceptability.
: Zubon
“Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I don’t think that saying was meant to be understood by those who are still only thinking of the product.