Overcoming perfectionism

In both chapter 2 and 10, Boice gives a chart of the different types of obstacles people encounter as they both prepare for teaching and writing. He lists the procrastinator, the perfectionist, the elitists, the blockers, and the oppositionalists (30 and 124). I didn't realize that I had an obstacle in my way until reading this, but I completely embody the perfectionist stereotype that he describes. Or, I used to. I guess you could say I'm working on it.

I'm one of those writers/workers/teachers/people who has a hard time leaving a project once it's started. This sounds a bit like the perfectionist Boice describes: "I either do something well or not at all... Once I get to work, I can't rest until I do things right" (30). This stems into all parts of my life, not just teaching and writing. For example, I wanted to make some hand-made purses for my family for Christmas, and instead of doing one a day for 2 weeks, I stayed up all night and did 14 purses (and it was still a few weeks before Christmas). You can imagine, then, what has happened in the past when I begin a writing or teaching project. I plan out a large chunk of time and write until it's all out. Sometimes that means 12 hours in front of a computer screen with breaks only for coffee and the bathroom. And, I'm not procrastinating--this is usually well in advance. I just like to get it out and move on to something else.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I'm working on it. I've tried, recently, to work on things a little bit at a time: an hour here, a half hour there, 20 minutes on the bus, etc. I got this idea from a professor in the Women and Studies department. Before classes started this semester, I asked her what I could do to better manage my time, and she said: Write and read in many short time-spans (frequent small sips, if you will) instead of few long time spans (or infrequent gulps). So far, this seems to be helping me manage my own stress (for the most part). And, I think it merges with Boice. He's a fan of 15 minutes here and there, and I guess that my new method is somewhat related to that. Hopefully this new method will help me to overcome my perfectionism. Anyone else see themselves in the listing of obstacles Boice describes? Which are you? What can you do to overcome that? Or, do you even think you need to?

PS: "Prewriting is a kind of foreplay, of taking time for preliminaries that prime the best results" (123). Really, Boice? Really? Now I am going to blush and giggle every time I encourage my students to prewrite... Anyone else find this to be a different kind of tone/metaphor than we've encountered in Boice already?