If sloppy is a 0 and perfect is a 10, most commercial software gets released at about a 7. Then customers beat on it, bugs are fixed and it eventually gets to a 9. Nothing ever reaches a perfect 10.
Whether you are writing a speech, creating a project plan or engineering something new… when do you usually show your work? If you don’t really care about who consumes your content, follows your plan or uses your product, you can just release it at a 3 and move on to other things. If you procrastinators and tinkerers care too much about perfecting it in your secret hidden bunker, you’ll be so late it may not matter anymore.
Following the software example, perhaps you should be risking judgment by showing it to other people at around a 5? Do an alpha test with colleagues you trust and then a beta test with customers you trust. Listen closely and make adjustments you had not even considered before.
The worst that can happen is that you are found out to be imperfect like the rest of us. The best that can happen is that you release something amazing because the audience had a hand in creating it.
Nothing is delivered until it is received.
