I can't remember where I read the concept of <em>The Perfect Review</em>, whether it was a conversation with a therapist, something in a manual for writers, or a thought that came to me from some haphazard part of my brain firing somewhere in my skull.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/holoz0r/23wMsLpyyjcCyEp3vh3mzRmRGanKCRBUKTg6bp6KpaS8MExCqLiy3Cskx1ELu7SEz1cLB.png)<em>[Image Source](https://pixabay.com/photos/smiley-map-hand-emotion-symbol-3692494/)</em>

Regardless of where the idea came from, <em>The Perfect Review</em> is just one of the many tactics anyone can use during the the stage of planning pretty much anything. You might be planning to put together a flat pack piece of furniture, your next painting, or an entire novel. 

Or maybe, you just want to design a perfect weekend. 

The concept of <em>The Perfect Review</em> is to imagine the best possible outcome from the situation, product, or outcome you're working toward. 

As a result, once you've written everything that you achieved, in the past tense, for something that you plan to do in the future, you can use this as a motivational tool and something to decompose into smaller items to complete. 

Some examples: The perfect review of some furniture manufacture:

> The table is steady, the legs supporting it have no sharp edges, and the varnish doesn't continue to smell strongly after application. The surface is smooth, with an interesting visual texture below, and will host many satiated friends in the future. 

If I was making a table - that would be my list of goals.

- Sturdy
- Smooth legs (so they don't hurt when you bang your own into them)
- The tabletop has an interesting texture
- A water based varnish to be used to not have a lingering stench of mineral oils 

Having said all of that, it is probably not the best example of a Perfect Review, because I am not exactly in the position of manufacturing a new dinner table at the moment. So, let me try with something slightly more relatable to me. 

At the moment, I am researching various topics to write a series of science fiction stories that I want to collate into an anthology. 

There's a lot of one-line story ideas that I have, and to flesh these out, I'll need to do research, write convincing dialogue, and become more aware of the subject matter. 

Therefore, If I am to write a perfect review of this non-existent anthology of my own short form fiction, I would write something like: 

> <em>The work is speculative, thought-provoking, and well written. Complex concepts are reduced to simplicity through the use of vivid metaphors, and the prose flows beautifully. For as many questions as the work answers about our fears, delusions and ambitions as a human species, each story focuses on different concepts that charmingly coalesce into a volume that will linger in your thoughts, that you'll want to recommend to friends. </em>

Speaking of that particular anthology, I will have more to share about it in the coming days, but you will no doubt see the posts that will become those stories published here before anywhere else. 

It is my ambition to have those stories published in print, but they must be written, and be of a high enough quality to warrant that. If not, well, self publishing is always an option. 

I've always had a relationship with writing, and it is only recently that I have given myself the space and the time to reconnect with it in enough depth to realise that it is not only the hardest of work to take those create notions and threads from my mind, and weave them into a tapestry that lets others hallucinate vividly as they read and interpret them. 

Enough about me, and my dreams. Have you heard of this tactic of "The Perfect Review" in your professional or creative life? Have you, or will you use this as a strategy to plan projects, and to give yourself a sense of what you need to achieve in order to succeed? 

Let me know!