“Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.”

If these tasks seem ridiculous, irresponsible and unthinkable to you, you may be a perfectionist. While reading this New York Times article about perfectionism, this list of activities was assigned to perfectionists. They found that despite their occasional slip ups, their world did not turn upside down.

Within this article, I noticed a lot of similarities to myself. By no means am I depressed or overly-critical, but I must be early for any activity, I schedule my day by the half-hour, and I can’t deal with sub-par effort. As a teen, I had to try my hardest at everything; I spent hours practicing the flute when I didn’t even like music that much.

Since high school, I have contained my perfectionism by not overcommitting myself to too many activities and setting time limits on work. Have you ever felt “at-risk” for dangerous, perfectionist disorders?