There’s a saying that goes along the lines of: “perfect is the enemy of good.” Although it’s true, there’s nothing inherently wrong with striving to do your best in your online job, so long as it’s within reason. It pushes you to greater heights and keeps you motivated to do better every day.
However, just like anything in excess, too much perfectionism can harm your well-being instead of improving it. Stress from work, anxiety, and burnout are just some of the ill effects of perfectionism on one’s mind and body.
Let’s take a closer look.
What is Perfectionism?
Before we continue, let us first discuss the meaning of perfectionism. Perfectionism is a desire for everything you and others do to be perfect. Signs include being highly critical of yourself and others, focusing entirely on results, and fearing failure.
In remote work, one can best see perfectionism in the obsession of both employees and supervisors with outputs and achieving impossible goals. This mentality can lead to delays and working past eight hours as they begin obsessing over minute details and errors in their work.
Another sign of remote work perfectionism is procrastination. With this mentality and a flexible schedule, it’s easy to delay your work until you’re “ready.” There will never be a time when you’ll be “ready” enough, and you’re just wasting time instead of accomplishing your tasks.
How Can Perfectionism Benefit Your Career?
When done in a healthy and moderated manner, a bit of perfectionism can help you in your remote work. These include:
It Gives You More Motivation to Work.
When you regularly strive for excellence, you want as many opportunities to display and hone your skills as possible. And you won’t just settle for good enough on your tasks, oh no. You won’t be satisfied until you’re sure you’ve accomplished your work flawlessly.
You’re More Attentive to Details.
If you want to ensure that you did your work perfectly, no spot must be left unchecked. A perfectionist mindset helps you be more thorough in producing and checking your work before calling it done. This can be advantageous if you’re working in a job that requires attention to detail, such as web development or online business service jobs.
You Pretty Much Always Produce Quality Work.
Even if you don’t see it at times, your co-workers and superiors will note that your output is always well-made. After all, you’ve thoroughly checked your work for flaws before submitting it for evaluation. This means they will view you as someone they can rely on to accomplish crucial tasks.
The Issues That Come With Remote Work Perfectionism.
Despite the benefits that come with a perfectionist mindset, there are several issues that come with this mindset. These are:
Increased Levels of Stress and Burnout.
Being a perfectionist comes with the price of never being satisfied with your work. There’s always something to improve, or perhaps, you feel that you didn’t do enough on a task. This mentality will cause you to feel stressed at work, which increases the likelihood of you getting burnt out.
Experiencing constant stress will reduce your productivity which, in turn, makes you even more anxious with yourself. This cycle of negativity will cause you to be burnt out from work.
Workaholism is a Danger to Your Physical Health.
Besides your mental and psychological health, your physical health is also at risk because of too much remote work perfectionism. Spending too much sitting at your workstation and not getting enough sleep can increase your chance of getting heart disease, obesity, and back problems.
Less Time to Spend With Family and Friends.
One of the main advantages of working from home is giving you more time to spend with your loved ones. However, if you are too much of a perfectionist, you’ll still have trouble finding time to bond with your loved ones. Instead of spending your free time with loved ones, you’ll prioritize work, which could damage your relationship with them over time.
Perfectionism Causes Delays in Your Tasks.
You’d think that being a perfectionist helps your punctuality in submitting tasks. Unfortunately, if your mindset doesn’t match your productivity, you’ll just be late in your submissions. Your high standards and fixation on every little detail can hamper your ability to submit your tasks on time.
Being Perfect Isn’t Always Good.
Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes from time to time; what matters more is how we bounce back and learn from these experiences.
And yes, having a perfectionist mindset does have its advantages, but one should beware not to overdo it. Because the issues that come with too much remote work perfectionism can be severely detrimental to your productivity and health.
If you’re looking for a company that promotes a healthy work culture for its employees, then Remote Staff’s the way to go. We strive to help you find the appropriate work setup that balances your drive to perfection with maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
