The Top 10 Things I Have Learned From Flylady #11: Progress, Not Perfection

Posted on January 7, 2008 by LJ

Yes, I know I am starting a Top 10 List with #11. It’s not a typo. It just serves to illustrate that if I had to wrestle with only picking 10 lessons, I might never have gotten the series written.

I have learned that things don’t have to be done perfectly. If I wait until I have time to do the job “perfectly” it will never get done.

So the kitchen floor doesn’t get scrubbed with a brush on my hands and knees. But it does get mopped weekly. So the walls don’t get washed with harsh cleaners twice a year. But the smudges get taken care of monthly, and I don’t need to scrub the walls. So the filing cabinet folders don’t need to be perfectly in order. But my papers are filed, rather than waiting in a pile while I find time to “re-do” the filing cabinet.

There are many things that I have learned to allow myself to do imperfectly. Practicing with the house is good, because the one thing about housework is that it always needs to be done again. So if I don’t do a perfect job on something one month, it will come up again. This has given me the freedom to try other things and not do them perfectly.

I used to wait until I could execute something perfectly before I would do it. Now I do things. The result is that not only is more getting done, but I also have allowed myself the freedom to fail as I try new things.

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