The secret isn’t better tools or more experience — it’s knowing when “good enough” actually is good enough
You know that feeling when your manager asks for an ETA and you think “two weeks” but say “three weeks just to be safe”? Yeah, I used to do that too. Then I watched my deadlines slip anyway because I kept polishing code that nobody would ever read.
Last year, I started tracking my development speed compared to my teammates. The results surprised me. I was consistently shipping features 3x faster than developers with similar experience. But here’s the weird part — I wasn’t working longer hours or using fancy AI tools that everyone talks about.
I was just doing everything wrong. At least, wrong according to everything I learned in computer science classes.
The Problem With “Perfect” Code
When I started coding, I thought every function needed to be perfectly tested. Every variable name had to be elegant. Every abstraction needed to be crystal clear. I wanted zero bugs and beautiful architecture.
This sounds good in theory. But in practice, it made me incredibly slow.
Here’s what actually happens when you chase perfection. You spend three hours naming a…
