During my diploma studies I had an English lecturer who gave use one simple and important advice (besides that “information” never has an “s” 😉 ):

Make it a good peace of work!

Even now, seven years after I finished my diploma study, these words echos in my head.

The good

Of course this is a very valuable advice. You should always give your best. Because:

Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.

So I took it to heart and try to give my best at everything I do. And that is what I expect from a Software Craftsman. Of course it is hard, you have no time, you need to do ten things at once and so on. But I’m sure the quote, echoing in my head over and over again, makes my results better.

The bad

On the other hand, I am never satisfied. Every time I write an important email, I must to force me to click send, because I always thing about “Can I express it that way? Am I impolite?” and so on. Whenever I write a blog post I think “I can not publish it, because it is not good enough!”. There is always so much to improve. And than I start to doubt, if the whole post is even useful. “What is the message?”, “What is the value for the people reading it?”. Even when I code I always find some parts which I want to hide from everybody else, because to me it seems too messy, and so on.

Conclusion

But luckily most of the time I come to the point where I think “It doesn’t matter. You did your best, if somebody will complain, you can do better next time.”, and I click “send” or “publish” or “commit” anyway. And most of the time I even get positive feedback. And if you think about, it is not that extraordinary, because I spend a lot of time doing it and most of the time I thought “You have to make it a good peace of work!” and so I do. Even if it is not perfect, it wouldn’t be that bad.

So I thank my English lecturer for his wise words and hope you will find them helpful, too.