Perfectionism

 Today, as I was talking to a friend who has a PhD, I realised I may be aiming for an unreasonable standard of work. At the moment, I am aiming for a finished product that would clear peer review. But, maybe I should start treating my PhD like a super-long assignment rather than book which will be published. Because my PhD will not be published. I might be able to turn it into a monograph and also spin some articles. But, I will have months and even years to refine my arguments to bring them to publishable standard. My PhD thesis will just sit in a repository catching dust, and might not be read by anyone else other than my supervisor and examiners. This is not an argument for turning out absolute garbage, which I couldn't bring myself to do even if I wanted to. Any work I turn out must, first and foremost, satisfy my own internal standards. But, maybe I should try to lower my own internal standards and treat PhD as a practice run rather than the finale. A practice run to make mistakes in and learn for my subsequent academic career. I might be unconsciously aiming for a work that matches the standard of the article I published, forgetting that a) it was co-authored with my supervisor who is smarter, a better writer and has much more experience than I do whereas a PhD is an individual piece of work b) a PhD is much longer, and it is much harder to achieve the same level of refinement for a work of this size c) my PhD won't be published. 

I am not going to pretend that I can lower my standards overnight, but at least it is something to be conscious about and mull over.