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Your 80% is most people's 95%.

A mental model that gets you unstuck, ships more work, and frees your team to do their best.

The trap

Aiming for 100% is what's keeping you stuck.

You're not doing heart surgery. Most things in business don't need 100%, but the loop in your head keeps refining and polishing and sitting on the work.

Meanwhile the people who could move it forward are blocked, waiting on you.

The picture

Draw a square. That's any task at 100%.

100% is theoretical. Almost nobody actually gets there.

First swipe

Swipe 80% of the way across. Stop.

For most jobs that's already enough. From the outside, your 80% looks like other people's 95% or 110%.

80%
If you really need more

Swipe 80% of what's left. Now you're at 96%.

Almost nothing in business needs more than this. The polish you'd add from here costs hours and changes nothing the customer ever sees.

96%
If you really, really need more

A third swipe gets you to 99.2%.

Save this one for the rare task that genuinely deserves it. For 99% of business work, the third swipe is overkill that costs you a day and ships you nothing extra.

99.2%
Why this matters

Perfectionism doesn't cost you. It costs your team.

While you sit on a project, taking it from 80 to 96 to 99, the people who could move it forward are blocked. They wait at a brick wall, not knowing what's happening on the other side.

Hand off at 80%. Now they get to do their swipe. Then someone else does theirs. Three swipes in a chain, and the work is at 99% without you having done it all.

Three buckets

Most teams have three types of people.

Knowing who's who is how the chain actually works.

Make it up

Idea people. They sketch a v1. They love going from blank page to something real-ish.

Make it real

Project people. They take v1 and iterate it to v10. That's the version the business actually uses.

Make it reoccur

Process people. They like running the same thing every month. They don't like new things.

Try it tomorrow

Three steps. Five minutes each.

  1. Pick one thing you're sitting on right now. It's the one that keeps slipping, the one you keep meaning to polish a bit more.
  2. Get it to an honest 80%, not 95% pretending to be 80%. Stop when it's good enough for the next person to act on it.
  3. Hand it off with a one-line brief: "I'm at 80. You take it from here." Skip the apology and the long preamble.

Do this once and notice how it feels. Do it ten times and watch your team unblock.

Your 80% is enough.

More frameworks, skills, and AI workflows for business owners and marketers at ads2ai.com.

Inspired by Dan Sullivan's 80% rule (Strategic Coach).

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