Good Enough

I have a confession. I have a character flaw that I have been working on correcting for several years.

I am a perfectionist.

This probably comes as no surprise to those who know me, especially close family members. But I willingly admit it now, and that is the first step in correcting this flaw, right?

Now, before we go further, I would like to clarify something. Being perfect is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, we have been commanded to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). But there are two problems with being a perfectionist:

1. Perfectionists often procrastinate because they don't want to start a project if they aren't sure they can finish it perfectly.
2. Perfectionists get consumed in a project, and continue to try to perfect things long after the benefits of perfecting the project have past. 

Procrastination Fear
In the bible, the parable of the talents tells the story of three servants who were each given a sum of money and told to do what he could with it (Matthew 25). The servants who received 5 and 2 talents each worked hard and doubled their Lord's money. The servant who received only one talent must have been a perfectionist. He was so fearful of losing his one talent that he hid it and did nothing at all.

When the Lord returned and reckoned with the servants, the two who had doubled the money were praised: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." But the servant who had hid the money in fear was rebuked: "Thou wicked and slothful servant." Even if we can't do things perfectly, we should still make an effort to do something.

Keep Moving
The point of the childhood game of "Hot & Cold" is to find a hidden object by following the clues "hotter" and "colder." One key lesson we can learn from this game is that it is impossible to find what we are looking for by standing still. Often, when we work to downsize and organize our life, we may find ourselves further from our goals. That's okay. This feedback is essential to finding what we are actually looking for, and we will often need to move in the wrong direction first, so that we can discover that it is, in fact, the wrong direction for us.

Economics of Organization
I already admitted to being a perfectionist, and now I will also admit that I am a bit of a numbers nerd. One of my favorite classes my freshman year in college was economics. The most applicable to life lesson I learned from that course was the concept of marginal cost & marginal benefit. In simple terms this means that at some point the extra cost of more work, will be more than the extra benefit gained from that work.

In organizing, this means that at some point, the energy required to further organize, or to maintain a high level of organization is more than the energy or stress saved by organizing. In some cases, the energy required to maintain "perfect" organization actually causes more stress.

Example: girls' hair accessories. Potentially, I could buy some nice drawer organizers, and have one section for hair rubberbands, one for bows, one for headbands, one for flowers, etc. This wouldn't take me very long to actually sort and organize. However, my girls don't care. If I insisted on keeping it organized it would only add to the stress in our house, and cause more contention. And then it would be a waste of money to buy the organizers.

Organize Until it's Good Enough, Then Stop. 
Instead of stressing over keeping the hair accessories "perfectly organized," we have chosen to simply make sure they all stay in the same drawer. The same principle can be applied to our toys. We have two toy bins for "cars & trains." At one point, one of my children wanted to sort these into "cars" and "trains" and spent quite a while separating them and telling all of her siblings that one of the train table drawers was just for "trains" and the other was for "cars." The sorted toys stayed sorted for about 10 minutes.

For a more adult example. In our kitchen, we have a drawer for spatulas & large spoons & other random handheld kitchen gadgets. This particular drawer itself is not organized in any way. Everything that belongs in that drawer is simply thrown in there. Why? Because it works. As long as the drawer is following the 80% rule, there is no point stressing over placing the spatula on the left side of the drawer, and the can opener on the right side.

Also, on the minimalist side of things, purge until it's good enough, then stop. I could get rid of all but one sauce pan in my kitchen. It would be possible. But minimizing that drastically would cause more stress as I tried to only cook one-pot dishes, or pre-cooked rice and then steamed the veggies. The point of this blog, is to end up with less stress, and less work if possible. If keeping a full set of pots and pans will make cooking dinner less stressful... then I'm going to keep my full set. :)

If It Works, Don't Mess With It.
After reading through several of my past posts, and seeing pictures of how little we have of some things, I know several of you have thought that there is no way that would work in your family. That's okay! If your current method of storing, playing with, and picking up toys is working, then don't spend the energy to change it! If your current stockpile of fabric for sewing projects makes you happy, don't get rid of it! Don't change things that are working for you.

However, when you notice something is not working, when it's causing stress and frustration, that's when it's time to make a change. That's when it's time to try something different. Maybe the something different will take you in the wrong direction, and you'll feel "colder." In that case, it's time to try something else, gradually getting "warmer" until you find something that works. Then when you find something that works, use it until it doesn't work anymore, and then change it again. Don't worry about finding the "perfect" method, because it doesn't exist.