Or perhaps “satisfaction criterion.” Perfectionists would then have a high satisfaction criterion for any task, some higher than is demanded by the task or actually practical.
Lowering the satisfaction criterion even a little can put completion of an impossible task into the realm of attainability.
Another heuristic is to start a task with a low satisfaction criterion so you can at least get something out, and then come back the next day with a high satisfaction criterion and refine what you started yesterday. This strategy of starting with a low satisfaction criterion that you raise as you get more done works well with writing and programming (e.g. prototyping).
Of course, the drawback of lowering one’s satisfaction criterion in one area is that once you get used to that way of thinking, it is easier to start letting things slide in general.
For example, when I was learning to socialize, I had to lower my satisfaction criterion for what constituted an acceptable utterance in a conversation, and what amount of thinking it required. Due to the speed of socializing, I could not use the high-deliberation, high-precision, and mistake-minimizing strategies that I used to excel at other tasks such as chess and school, because they got me stuck in analysis paralysis while the conversation whizzed by.
Yet once I learned to lower my satisfaction criterion, I found myself cutting corners in a lot of other areas, like schoolwork. So I had to learn to switch between my perfectionistic cognitive style, and my more improvisational cognitive style. I think the ideal is to appraise the satisfaction criterion necessary for any stage of any specific task.
Based on this experience, I would suggest that anyone attempting to lower their perfectionism attempt a task that cannot be effectively solved by perfectionistic cognitive strategies, particularly time-constrained or real-time tasks such as socializing, musical improvisation, dance, blitz chess, or doing a painting all in one sitting.
A perfectionist will want to excel at any task they attempt, but to succeed, they will have to cognitively inhibit or disable their own perfectionism: being non-perfectionistic is the only way to approach perfection. Thus, perfectionism implodes.
How about “a tendency to optimize even when the costs of optimization (may) outweigh the benefits”?
Maybe “stopping criterion”.
Or perhaps “satisfaction criterion.” Perfectionists would then have a high satisfaction criterion for any task, some higher than is demanded by the task or actually practical.
Lowering the satisfaction criterion even a little can put completion of an impossible task into the realm of attainability.
Another heuristic is to start a task with a low satisfaction criterion so you can at least get something out, and then come back the next day with a high satisfaction criterion and refine what you started yesterday. This strategy of starting with a low satisfaction criterion that you raise as you get more done works well with writing and programming (e.g. prototyping).
Of course, the drawback of lowering one’s satisfaction criterion in one area is that once you get used to that way of thinking, it is easier to start letting things slide in general.
For example, when I was learning to socialize, I had to lower my satisfaction criterion for what constituted an acceptable utterance in a conversation, and what amount of thinking it required. Due to the speed of socializing, I could not use the high-deliberation, high-precision, and mistake-minimizing strategies that I used to excel at other tasks such as chess and school, because they got me stuck in analysis paralysis while the conversation whizzed by.
Yet once I learned to lower my satisfaction criterion, I found myself cutting corners in a lot of other areas, like schoolwork. So I had to learn to switch between my perfectionistic cognitive style, and my more improvisational cognitive style. I think the ideal is to appraise the satisfaction criterion necessary for any stage of any specific task.
Based on this experience, I would suggest that anyone attempting to lower their perfectionism attempt a task that cannot be effectively solved by perfectionistic cognitive strategies, particularly time-constrained or real-time tasks such as socializing, musical improvisation, dance, blitz chess, or doing a painting all in one sitting.
A perfectionist will want to excel at any task they attempt, but to succeed, they will have to cognitively inhibit or disable their own perfectionism: being non-perfectionistic is the only way to approach perfection. Thus, perfectionism implodes.
“Stopping criterion” is already the standard terminology for how your machine learning algorithm decides when to stop.
Thanks for clarifying.