Unfuck Your Habitat

Feb. 24, 2012 at 10:02am with 213 notes

Perfectionism is pretty much the enemy of unfucking your habitat. Perfectionism gives you a ready excuse to not do things. Perfectionism expects 100%, and will not accept anything less.

Here’s the thing. 15%, while not 100%, is still better than 0%. Doing something is better than doing nothing. It’s easy to say, “Well, if I can’t do everything, and do it completely and perfectly, I just won’t do anything at all.” It’s easy because it’s lazy. Perfectionism has two sides: overworking and being lazy. Overworking is when you just keep going in order to achieve 100%. Laziness is when you do absolutely nothing under the excuse that if it won’t be perfect, it’s not worth it. And while we’re being so proud of ourselves for having such high standards, everything’s going to shit all around us.

This is why I advocate 20/10s. Because people who are used to marathon cleaning may not realize how much you can actually accomplish in 20 minutes. Regardless of how much it is, it’s always more than you can accomplish in 0 minutes. And it’s 20 minutes less that you have to do next time around.

Let go of your (real or perceived) perfectionism. Embrace “a little at a time”-ism. Trust me, you’ll end up so much closer to perfection once you stop trying to be perfect.