Everyone struggles with perfectionism.

Personally, I have for years.

I use 3 colour pens while taking notes during my schooling. I always wanted my writing should look beautiful, colourful, and properly formatted.

But what changed for me was I didn't look back into my beautiful notes. The problem was, I didn't remember what I'd written with 3 different coloured pens.

Taking colourful notes is pointless if I can't even remember what I wrote.

And as soon as that clicked, I started to understand that overcoming perfectionism wasn't that hard—I was just doing the wrong thing.

Here's what I should have done instead:

One good pen is enough

We take notes:

• To capture what've learned

• To remember what've learned

• To revise and recollect the ideas

• To put all important points in a nutshell

• To capture our own ideas while learning

To do all of these, one (coloured) pen is enough.

As the saying goes, “Less is more.”

When taking notes, the most important thing is to focus on capturing valuable insights rather than getting caught up in making your notes look perfect.

It's important to prioritize capturing important information and understanding the concepts, rather than worrying too much about the presentation or formatting of your notes.