Finding GEMO: Good Enough, Move On

Finding GEMO: Good Enough, Move On (The One Ball Series)

GEMO completion mantra. Have you found GEMO? Use GEMO to create quick action and engagement. With GEMO, you don’t need all your ducks in a row, you need to be able to create steadily improving iterations by completing a performance with the inspiration of Good Enough, Move On.

The GEMO Advantage. GEMO is an acronym for Good Enough, Move On. It helps avoid perfectionism, dithering, delays, and other productivity traps and snarls.

Practicing GEMO. Here is how you practice it. You start working at a task, you begin to run out of steam or you know more needs to be done but there are other projects and things that need to be done so you say, GEMO. You move on and you know you can come back to it and improve it later. A GEMO artist does not believe in perfection but believes in things being good enough, being willing to move on, and recognizes you can return and make it better.

Project Managment GEMO. It can also be very helpful to GEMO with partners to avoid becoming bogged down in a task or engaging in discussions that produce no results. GEMO may not occur at the end of project management but GEMO could help a project team from getting bogged down and not moving closer to the targeted results.

Good may be good enough. GEMO is not used to avoid work but to recognize there is always something more that could be done in this age of constant and never ending improvement. Yet, sometimes good, is good enough…at least for now.

Satisfice as early GEMO. I first practiced this principle in the writing process 25 years ago. Back then, the formal term was to satisfice:

To obtain an outcome that is good enough. Satisficing action can be contrasted with maximizing action, which seeks the biggest, or with optimizing action, which seeks the best. In recent decades doubts have arisen about the view that in all rational decision-making the agent seeks the best result. Instead, it is argued, it is often rational to seek to satisfice i.e. to get a good result that is good enough although not necessarily the best.

Preventing writing blocks. Satisficing was a good approach for writers to avoid perfectionism and to finish the first draft. It was very helpful for writers who experienced writing blocks or writing reluctance to get the first vision out and realize they can return for multiple re-visions.

You must be cautious with GEMO – you are not avoiding something rather you acknowledge it is good enough for now. it may be just what you need to increase your productivity.

I hope you find GEMO

This post at an example of GEMO. This post could be better but it is good enough —time to move on. My first iteration of this article appeared in September of 2007 when I was co-writing Slacker Manager. Back then, it was Good Enough, I moved on.  Now, I have returned to discuss GEMO as a an employee engagement tool.