Perfectionism in ADHD

There have been days when my home was a mess and I read a text twenty times and still did not send it. There have been weeks when I could not finish a presentation because I thought it was not yet good enough.

For a long time these two things being in the same person seemed like a contradiction to me. How can a messy person be a perfectionist? Then I saw that both come from the same root.

Where perfectionism comes from

Most people who grow up with ADHD know the experience of mistakes all too well: forgotten dates, unfinished jobs, overlooked details. This accumulation produces a defense.

The name of the defense is raising the standard. The logic works like this: if I do everything flawlessly, no one can say anything.

This is called a compensation strategy, and it is a close relative of masking. In the short term it works; in the long term it costs dearly.

In my own story it is easy to trace this. I did my homework on the last night and each time I expected it to be flawless. Expecting it to be flawless was the reason I could not start until the last night; and its being left to the last night fed the feeling that next time it would have to be even more flawless. This cycle is the self-magnifying kind.

Perfectionism does not come from a high goal. Most of the time it comes from low confidence.

Why it magnifies procrastination

One of the components in Steel's (2007) model is the person's expectation that they can succeed at the task. As the expectation falls, procrastination rises.

When the standard rises, the expectation automatically falls: I have to do it flawlessly, I will not be able to do it flawlessly, so let me not start. The result is that perfectionism produces exactly what it fears.

There is a second mechanism. In the framework of Sirois and Pychyl (2013), procrastination is avoiding the discomfort of the moment. A high standard makes approaching the task uncomfortable and feeds avoidance.

The third is the sneakiest: preparation. Circling around the task instead of starting the real work, collecting resources, building systems. From outside this looks like working, and for exactly this reason it goes unnoticed. I covered it in detail in the article on analysis paralysis.

What it looks like

• Not being able to finish. The work stops at ninety percent and the last step never comes. In the glossary: ninety percent syndrome.
• Excessive preparation. Huge systems set up before starting the real work, dozens of sources read.
• All or nothing. If it cannot be done flawlessly, not doing it at all. In the glossary: all or nothing; the details are in the article on all-or-nothing thinking.
• Over-correcting. Reviewing the same text, the same presentation, the same message again and again.
• Hiding. Not showing unfinished work to anyone, and therefore not being able to get help.

Two different perfectionisms

This distinction helped me a lot, because putting everything in the same basket is wrong.

On one side there is a meticulousness aimed at the quality of the work: wanting to do something well, caring about detail, loving the result. This gives energy, and it is common in ADHD around subjects you are interested in.

On the other side there is a rigidity aimed at avoiding mistakes: not getting it wrong, not being criticized, not leaving an opening. This takes energy and does not even get the work started.

The distinguishing question I ask myself is this: am I trying to do this work better, or am I trying to stop someone from saying something? When the second answer comes, lowering the standard is the right move.

What works

Write the quality threshold in advance. Before starting the task, one sentence: "This draft will stay." "This presentation will be simple." "This message will be three sentences." A written threshold draws a limit against the standard that rises later.

Tie it to time, not to the result. Work two hours, and whatever it is at the end is what it is. This is the only method that decides in advance when the work will end.

Write a bad first version. The aim is to be bad. A version written without trying to write well produces something that can be fixed. A blank page cannot be fixed.

Show it to someone early. Showing it at thirty percent gives better results than hiding it at ninety percent. Early feedback corrects the direction from the start.

Check the standard from outside. The question "if someone else had done this work, would I find it sufficient?" shows how far outside your own standard is. For me the answer is almost always "yes, more than sufficient," and this reminds me how unfair a measure I use.

Count the correction rounds. Deciding in advance how many times you will return to a text cuts the endless correcting. Two rounds, then it goes.

Deliberately lower the threshold on small jobs. Accepting that not every task deserves the same care is the rule that saves the most time. An email does not need to be read a third time. Saving energy for the three things that really matter produces a better result than giving everything equal care.

Build a finishing ritual. Finishing is a skill too. A concrete move such as closing the file after delivering the work, closing the tab, crossing it off the list tells the mind that the work is done. Without this, the work keeps staying open in the mind.

A separate burden at work

Perfectionism is something rewarded in working life, and this makes it harder to give up. No one tells you "you are being too careful"; on the contrary, work that comes out without mistakes is appreciated.

The invisible side is this: no one knows how many hours and how many nights that mistake-free work cost. I covered this asymmetry separately in the article on the pressure to look flawless at work.

Three common mistakes

Trying to lower the standard in a single day. The decision "from now on I will accept good enough" does not hold on its own. What works is trying it on a single type of work: for example only in internal correspondence.

Leaving setting the threshold to the middle of the work. In the middle of the work the question "is this enough" always gets the answer "no," because at that moment you are tired and too close to the text. The threshold has to be set before starting.

Turning feedback into a reason to avoid. The return of showing early is sometimes criticism, and this can lead to not showing again. Yet criticism that comes early is far cheaper than criticism that comes late. I need to remind myself of this every time.

The self-compassion part

Self-compassion, as defined by Neff (2003), is treated not as a leniency that weakens you but as the condition for being able to keep working despite a mistake.

The opposite of perfectionism is not not caring. Its opposite is not throwing yourself out of the work when you make a mistake.

I covered the details of this subject in the article on shame and self-compassion.

The sentence I tell myself

Before sending a piece of work I now think this: does this piece of work do what the job needs it to do?

If the answer is yes, it goes. Whether it is flawless is a separate question, and since I stopped asking that question I both finish more work and the work I finish hurts me less.