Perfectionism. Perfect. Perfecto. Can’t stop until it’s perfect. I will never get it to be perfect, so why even bother? Does this sound familiar?
I am a perfectionist. The things listed above are often the ones that prevent me from achieving my goals.It is so easy to let the perfect become the enemy of good. We get caught in the trap of perfect so often, we may not even realize it. Did you know that one of the reasons why we do not get things done is because we know we can not make it perfect?
But we don’t have to. Whatever it is you are working on, if your goal is perfection, I suggest you slow down and do this small exercise.
Get out a sheet of paper and a pen, and describe your “perfect” in detail. It can be written in a form of a short essay, a note to self, or just a bullet point list. Once you have a full picture, think what steps you need to take to achieve that.
For example, if your “perfect goal” is to have a house with no clutter in clear view, what would the steps be to achieve that? I normally start with my kitchen counters, and once they are clear I move on to other tasks. What is your point of beginning?
Next step would be to keep up and not mess up the area I worked on. This is where a rotating schedule comes in. I have a kitchen cleaning scheduled on Monday mornings. I have this luxury since we homeschool and while the kids are working on their school at the kitchen table I can supervise and help as needed as well as get some work done myself. Once you go through the same rotation several times, you will notice how your hands automatically clear the counters on the go even not on a scheduled day. It becomes a habit, something that is done on the regular basis and doesn’t take that much time anymore.
Now, here is a short disclaimer. Before I moved my kitchen into rotating schedule, I made it a point to declutter. So, for my perfect kitchen I needed:
Step 1 Declutter.
Step 2 Think really hard before bringing a new piece in, no matter if it’s a new coffee mug or another appliance.
Step 3 Deep clean.
Step 4 Add deep cleaning and clearing to my rotation.
Step 5 Stick to the rotation schedule and make it work.
Step 6 Enjoy my fabulous and perfect kitchen!
What is your perfect?
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