Doing Imperfect the Right Way

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Are you like me and get excited and empowered at the close of a year, only to become deflated or overwhelm by the 2nd week of January?  Resolutions of losing weight, organizing and decluttering sound great the last few days of December.  The steps to reach goals are checked done until around January 10th.  Then that perfect plan to reach a goal hits a stumbling block and the goal becomes one never reached.  I have felt this way year after year for a bunch of years.  I’m not alone.  I saw a report that 92% of the people that make a resolution…fail.

My word for 2018 is imperfect. After reading Finish a book by Jon Acuff, I’m doing my resolutions imperfect the right way.

And it’s working in my laundry room!!

Doing imperfect the right way

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The laundry room is one challenge.  For two people we have a ton of laundry.

It doesn’t help that I have a little laundry helper!!  Little Emily is looking for socks…her obsession!

Laundry {you can insert cleaning or other tasks here}

Overwhelmed

Here’s how I overwhelmed myself with laundry.  See if you can relate.

1. I would do one load each day completely for 3 days in a row.  {That means ironing and putting everything away}  Feeling great about my accomplishment…I would miss the next 4 days!  Then walk into our small laundry room overflowing with dirty clothes.
2. Mama had a saying, “If you’re going to do something, do it right!”  If I ironed a shirt, I went for perfection.  I have 4 different starches, kept my iron filled with water and at the right setting.  It would take 20 minutes for a button-down shirt!  Plus, as I was going for “perfection” I would be hanging the “perfectly” ironed shirt only to notice a big wrinkle I ironed into the back.
3. Several mornings, actually more than I want to admit, I would add a load to the washer, carefully measure the correct amount of soap and softner.  Then set the washer to the correct settings and time…and never walk back into the laundry room again until the next morning!  There’s nothing like damp smelly clothes to start your day.

Imperfect Laundry

How I do imperfect laundry now.

1. Make it fun.  Ironing while watching goldies TV.  That Girl, Petticoat Junction and, Green Acres distract me from everything I’m doing including ironing an addition big wrinkle in the back of Mike’s shirt.  I look forward to escaping into old TV shows I was bummed the other day when I didn’t have ironing to do.
2. Bomb perfectly pressed or for that matter clean laundry.  Sorry mama, there’s no perfection in ironing or laundry!
3. Realize perfect laundry is not my goal.  We have plenty of clothes to wear and we are lucky to put on a semi-pressed shirt…with a big ironed wrinkle in the back…and a stain on the front.

As a blogger, I have many several complicated goals.  Goals that I have to learn something technical before I can even start the goal.  Photography is an example of one goal for 2018.  Here are my plans to not be one of the 92% that don’t reach their resolutions.

Finish Imperfect

1. Double the time it will take to reach my goal of updating photos on the website.
2. Cut in half the number to update.
3. Accept that it will not be perfect, just imperfectly better.
4. Spend goal related time at the beginning of each workday.
5. Bomb time drains…like perfect laundry.
6. Stop planning perfection and start finishing imperfectly.
7. Pick something uncomfortable if I don’t reach my goal.  Like singing in the middle of a store.  Eek!

If you would like to read more about finishing your resolutions or goals check out the book, Finish – Give yourself the gift of done by Jon Acuff.  Not only is it a fun read but it’s a book that makes sense to me.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good ~ Voltaire.  One of my favorite sayings.

I created a printable as my gift to you to join me in doing imperfect the right way.  Click here to instantly download yours.

Let’s be the 8%!