SDS 336: Better Than Perfect

Welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast everybody. Super excited to have you back here on the show. Today’s episode is better than perfect. And what inspired me to record this episode is today I am working on the second Tableau course, which is the advanced Tableau course or not advanced Tableau course. It’s called the Tableau Certified Professional Exam Preparation course. So Tableau has three certifications. They are just the Professional level one, level two is Certified Associate and level three is Certified Professional. And so I’m working, well, I was working today on the Certified Professional course. Extremely advanced topics. Extremely. I might sound like very enthusiastic, but it is, it is what it is. It’s very, it’s very inspiring, very fun stuff. You’ve heard me talking about this Tableau course, these Tableau courses for a while, this new series that I’m working on and it’s just that I’m so excited by it and I’ve been, you know, working like immersed into this whole world of visualization for weeks now.

And so what I was working on it is like this, if you know Tableau, they’ve got level of detailed calculations and I was doing some case studies on level of detailed calculation. This specific one was really cool. It’s about Michael Jordan’s career and how he, you know, like how he played in different, for many years in different seasons. And we were like in this particular section we were analyzing… What we were analyzing? The amount, the percentage like free throws not a percentage, like how many free throws he had done throughout his career and how it compared in different seasons. And anyway, if you know Tableau does this concept of level of detailed calculations and you need a level of detailed calculations or LOD in order to calculate that, to perform aggregation. And so I recorded this whole section and then I was doing the homework part.

I was thinking through the homework part and I realized that there is another concept that comes up and there, already in the section, like, apart from the main thing we were learning, there was another four concepts that came up that I dissected in special tutorials. I call them the discussion tutorials. We just sit down and discuss like the different things that are going on. And like already four things had come up and now this fifth new thing comes up during the homework when I’m planning it out and I’m like, “Oh gosh, like this is a whole new area” of like you basically need to use an LOD calculation to hack Tableau in order to desegregate an aggregated field. Like it’s, it’s new level even for me, it’s like a new level of insanity in terms of complexity. And I’m like thinking, “Oh, how am I going to explain this?”

And I realized at that point, so where this is all going, this is not a podcast about Tableau, it’s a podcast about getting things done. What I realized where this is all going is that, or like what I realized at the time is that, and this was like an hour ago, what I realized is that it is really slowing me down like that in that thing that just came up, I realized how I started planning out. “Okay. Well I’m going to have to do a whole separate section. I’m going to finish the homework. This part I will, like we will talk about something else and then I’ll maybe mention this part. We will say it’ll come up in a new section, this new specific, this, this fifth concept.” We’ll call it the fifth concept, for the purpose of this podcast “I’ll mention this fifth concept and I’ll say it will come up in a new section, I’ll record a whole section about that. Then I’ll provide additional homework on that fifth concept”.

And I realized how this whole thing is exploding, right? Like right in front of my eyes. And at the same time as the amount of like it means a whole new section that has to be created out like a whole new data set, a whole new case study, a whole new homework just for this fifth concept that just came up. In order to like really make it perfect for, for students to go through and like really understand the whole ins and outs of how to hack Tableau with LOD calculations. And as this was exploding in front of my face, I felt my energy and my kind of like, what was it, my energy and my perseverance, like diminishing. I felt like my enthusiasm was shrinking as this was exploding because I was realizing like already this course like is going to be like a 20-30 hour course and it’s going to have like dozens of sections, dozens of case studies and now I’m adding another one, which is, you know, is going to take like, it’s gonna require me to, you know, like sit down and like really design this whole thing just because of a simple, not a simple, a really complex fifth concept, but I just want to make it really perfect, really perfect.

And this perfectionism is completely destroying my motivation to continue, like it’s going to be super hard for me to push through. It’s gonna probably take me a day just to overcome this whole mental block that’s building up. And then I realized to myself like, “What am I doing? Why am I doing it? What will the students appreciate more?” Like what is better? If we’re getting to the answer to that then better than perfect. So what will my students, what will our students appreciate more? Will they appreciate more if it’s perfect or if it’s done, right? What is better, perfect, but not done or done but not perfect? And that is the answer to the tutorial, to the tutorial, to the title of this episode. Done is better than perfect.

A lot of the times in life we try to make something perfect, perfect, perfect. And that means that increases the amount of work we have to do. That increases the time it will take, the efforts it will require, that reduces our enthusiasm about it. Our productivity drops, our mental block increases and eventually we probably won’t even get it done in the end. So a lot of the times just get it done. Like if it’s 80% good and people can learn from it, it’s 80% of perfect, that’s amazing. That’s an outstanding result. People can learn from it. And that’s all you gotta do, you gotta do the delivery. In my case, like learn from it, depending on your career and what you do. It might be, if it delivers the result that people want, if it gets people happy, excited about what they were looking for, that’s good. That’s great. That’s fantastic. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

So, and with that thought in mind, what I did was I said like that and I’m not going to, like, it’s not necessary. This is a fifth concept. What I’m going to do and I’ve already explained four in the main section of the course, I’m not going to add another fifth section, fifth part to that section because that might overwhelm people. What I’m going to do is I’m just going to include that fifth concept in the homework. And so people, students who take the course, like if they’re really diligent and thorough and they do their homework exercises and they go through the solutions, they’ll learn that fifth concept. If they’re not, then either they don’t need it or if it does come up somewhere else throughout the course, I will explain it. I will mention again, or I’ll redirect them to this homework exercise so they know where they can find the solution, the answer.

So maybe it’s not a perfect way of structuring it, but it’s really delivers on the promises. It gives information and ultimately everybody can learn from that. Ultimately, everybody’s going to be happy and most importantly I know I will get it done. Now I’ll be able to, I won’t have that mental block, I’ll get it done. All the information is going to be there and might not be in a separate tutorial for with a very specific title, it will be part of a homework, but still the information, the knowledge will be there and it’s going to be done. So there we go my friends. That is the idea behind today’s tutorial. Have a look in your…. Tutorial, podcast. Have a look in your life. Where is it that you have mental blocks because you’re trying to make things perfect?

It can be at work, very likely it happens at work, but it can also be in sports. It can be in relationships, it can be in families, it can be in your free time, it can be in your hobbies. Hobbies is another big one. It can be anywhere and next time it comes up, next time you feel this dreaded weight of making something perfect, of not living up to your own imaginary standards. And remember, perfection is the lowest standard a human being can have. It’s just because it just is. It’s just a saying. And there are much better standards than perfectionism. And once you feel that, just say to yourself, done is better than perfect.

And on that note, I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Enjoy the amazing nature outside or whatever you’re going to be doing. And I look forward to seeing you back here next time. Until then, happy analyzing.