Thoroughness In the Community

vs. incompleteness

Taking care of necessary details

To practice Thoroughness I will:

• plan my work
• pay attention to details
• make a list so I don’t forget
• finish what I start
• clean up along the way

“Good Enough”

When time and energy are in short supply, my standards for Good Enough are much easier to hit. Later, when I see something that was good enough at the time, I find myself feeling disappointed in my performance. While there are times when good enough really is good enough, granting myself grace to slide too often leads to details getting missed.

I am also plagued at the other end of the spectrum sometimes. My perfectionism causes me to never feel finished with a project or that it is good enough. Perfectionism also stops me from even starting a project because the best way is eluding me. In my IT days as an analyst, we called this the Paralysis of Analysis. It was safe to stay in an analysis phase. Moving on meant you had confidence in your design and it was time to build it.

Good enough thinking and perfectionism are both killers of Thoroughness. To move ‘good enough’ closer to Thoroughness I can use Wisdom to help me discern what is truly good enough and keep my performance effective. To move perfectionism closer to Thoroughness, I can use Humility to temper my ego and keep my performance high.

What character quality can you use to improve Thoroughness?