Remember back in undergrad when you could crank out a paper the night before and still get an A+? Those were the days—when actually scratching that perfectionist itch was possible.
Fast forward to your current faculty position, where feeling like an A+ student is extremely uncommon for most of us. If you're anything like me, that perfectionist mindset has stuck around, whispering that anything less than 110% is failure, but it's not producing the same results as it once did. Our responsibilities and expectations have increased significantly.
The reality of our lives is that there’s far too much vying for our time to be A+ at everything. You can’t give 100% of your time, energy, and effort to each part of your life—service, teaching, research, motherhood, mental health, physical health, and everything else. It’s more like 10% here, 5% there, constantly shifting depending on what needs your attention most.
Trying to do it all at A+ just isn’t realistic. Consequently, you have to admit that some of the things you would like to do well actually require more of a B+ effort.
Today I’m writing about lowering your expectations of your output on lower-priority tasks or responsibilities. It's a form of strategic standard-lowering that allows you to account for the impossible demands on your bandwidth while also keeping your priorities in mind.
But first: Priorities
When you have a lot on your plate and everything feels urgent, it’s difficult to know where to devote your energy. That’s why the first step is to take a moment to identify what truly matters right now—the one thing that will have the biggest impact if you move it forward.
For example, if you're feeling the tenure clock ticking and your manuscript isn't as far along as you'd like, you should devote less energy and time to other things if that manuscript is critical to your promotional file.
The Mindset: Becoming the B+ Academic
Allowing yourself to achieve a B+ in certain areas of your work life is one way to guard more energy for the high-impact efforts. When I’m facing a tight writing deadline, I might hold off on updating my lecture slides to become a B+ teacher that week so I can be an A+ writer. The writing has bigger career implications, and honestly, my lecture—while not TED Talk worthy—still gets the job done.
Don't get me wrong: teaching is important; it's just that the effort to update slides isn't what I need right now to get to the more important goal—a goal that, once achieved, will allow me to keep my job and continue teaching.
I also write about the B+ idea here:
The Strategy: What’s the Easiest Version of This?
Once you’ve adopted the B+ mindset, here’s a simple strategy to put that into action when faced with tasks or responsibilities that don’t contribute as much to your main priorities.
Instead of letting it take up more time and effort than it needs to, you might ask yourself, what is the simplest version of this?
Let’s walk through a few examples:
Committee Work: That proposal you need to draft? Easiest version: A bullet-point outline shared with colleagues with a friendly “Looking forward to your thoughts on expanding these key points!”
Grading: That mountain of essays? Easiest version: Use a rubric that focuses on two or three main concepts instead of agonizing over less important ideas.
Course Prep: Outdated lecture slides? Easiest version: Swap out that MySpace reference for something students have actually heard of, and call it a day.
Meeting Leadership: Running a department meeting? Easiest version: Three discussion points and plenty of coffee.
The beauty of the easiest version is that it gets you moving. Perfection is not the starting line; rather, it is a mythical finish line that never stops moving. The easiest version? That’s your starting point. It’s something you can actually build on.
Imagine what you’d accomplish if you stopped agonizing over the “right” way and just did the simplest thing that moved you forward. Your to-do list would shrink, and you’d have more mental bandwidth for the things that really matter.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it:
The next time you’re juggling too many things (and let’s be real, that won’t be long from now), try this:
Identify your priorities. Figure out which tasks actually matter the most.
Embrace the B+. Remind yourself that good enough is still good—and often, it’s precisely what you need.
Pick your B+ tasks. Decide which projects will get 85% effort instead of 100%.
Ask yourself, what’s the easiest version of this I can do right now?
Do exactly that! No apologies, no guilt.
If the idea of giving something a B+ effort still makes you cringe, hear me out, dear perfectionist. I’m really just suggesting you be realistic with your time and energy. It’s about choosing where your best efforts go so you don’t burn out trying to be perfect at everything.
And once you get comfortable with the B+ mindset, just wait until I tell you about the magic of C+!
Good enough should be good enough. I am working on applying this in many areas of my life and it is resulting in feeling less stress. Thank you for your thoughts!