

Building computer tools to cure perfectionism. - amichail

One could imagine building tools that automatically introduces minor errors into whatever one is working on.<p>For example, when building a user interface, the UI builder could introduce minor position errors.<p>When writing an email, a tool could introduce minor typos, inconsistent spacing, etc.<p>All of this is to make people paralyzed by perfectionism confront the reality that minor errors are ok.<p>And even in cases where minor errors can lead to disaster, the mental health of the software developer is more important than any product after all.
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tokenadult
You're probably better off looking at some of the research on positive
psychology

<http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/>

<http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx>

and seeing if you can automate some of the cognitive training that comes out
of that research to reduce your paralyzing perfectionism.

[http://talentdevelop.com/1130/tal-ben-shahar-on-letting-
go-o...](http://talentdevelop.com/1130/tal-ben-shahar-on-letting-go-of-
perfectionism/)

Introducing errors into a program intentionally doesn't sound like the best
way to help a programmer.

~~~
amichail
Do you have any specific therapies in mind?

BTW, intentional errors are described here:

[http://books.google.ca/books?id=w6ESB0Ys4IoC&pg=RA1-PA24...](http://books.google.ca/books?id=w6ESB0Ys4IoC&pg=RA1-PA248&lpg=RA1-PA248&dq=perfectionism+%22intentional+errors%22&source=bl&ots=xr3CG6iS8g&sig=b71qE-
dsTc0jxZ8la49Hy0J_tqI&hl=en&ei=U0zpSaXXCMyrtge6jfCXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1)

~~~
tokenadult
The three good things exercise

<http://www.cabinetgirls.com/Three_Good_Things_Exercise.pdf>

<http://pos-psych.com/news/jen-hausmann/20070403191>

isn't specifically directed toward perfectionism, but it is helpful.

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csomar
For writing, Word happen to control those minors errors. It's good. But Word
is an application, it works with an exact algorithm, so sometimes it doesn't
give you the best results.So here's how I do.

Disable all those features. I write my article or text completely.

Enable all the features again, it'll highlight errors, then I correct the ones
that are really errors.

Finally, everyone should have techniques to avoid those minors errors, whether
you are developing or writing.

~~~
amichail
The idea is to force people to confront flaws at a minor level in the hope
that they would stop worrying so much about flaws of all sorts -- minor or
major.

