I recently read a post on LinkedIn from someone who said, “‘good enough’ isn’t good enough”. This leads me to believe there are multiple definitions of “good enough”.
When he uses these words, I believe he’s using a bottom-up approach. That is, something starts as awful, then bad, then good enough, then decent, then very good, then excellent.
Using this approach, these words mean, “just barely acceptable”. Sure you could be better, but why bother? It’s good enough.
When I use these words, I’m working from a top-down approach. This means shifting down from perfect, to good enough, to good, to bad, and then to awful.
Using this approach, I’m preventing myself from doing something perfectly. It’s good enough to be used.
Keep in mind there’s no such thing as perfect, and you probably shouldn’t waste your time trying to obtain it.
The takeaway
The expression, “done is better than perfect” comes to mind. And if you want to make it better after it’s published, then iterate until you’re close enough to perfect.