I’ve made my perfectionism serve me

I have a confession to make: I feel guilty when I half-ass things. Furthermore, I tend to have perfectionism. It’s not pretty and I’m sick of it. However, I might have found a solution – a mental trick. I call it “Levels of progression”.

It’s something right in front of us.

Emergency triage. Exercise intensity. Bloom’s taxonomy. Maslow’s hierarchy. Tiers. Free to premium plan. iPhone Mini to iPhone Pro Max.

Imagine teaching Ph.D levels of math to first graders because if not that then schools are not doing their best. Imagine running a marathon on your first day of a physical fitness program because if you’re not doing that, then you’re not doing your best.

Due to my high conscientiousness, this verse always makes me guilty when I’m not on hard mode:

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NKJV)

So for example, when it comes to cleaning the house, I would not be content of sweeping just the visible areas because is that the best I can do? No. So I would sweep the entire house and mop the floor afterwards. And now, is that the best thing I could do? Heck no. So I’ll sweep the entire floor area again to make sure no dirt remains. Then my soul is safe.

Now there would be days where I would be back from school or work totally gassed out. What do I do when the dust have collected themselves in the house? I would again be compelled to clean everything, with all my might.

Over time, there comes a point where either I will clean, or not at all. After all, if I haven’t started doing something, I’m not subject to anyone’s judgement – especially my own – that I’m half ass-ing my task.

However, the consequences of this leads to pain. The percentage of mess in the house would need to reach a certain threshold to warrant my decision to start cleaning. In short, it needs to be dirty enough before I clean. Dirty enough means very dirty, for my lazy self.

So what if there was a way to do your best, and not be subject to extreme conditions?

Levels of progression

For cleaning the apartment
Levels (per room)

1. Sweep visible floor area
2. Sweep entire floor area
3. Sweep and mop visible floor area
4. Sweep and mop entire floor area

With the defined levels, I can now plan something like this:

On a lazy day

• Entrance Room – 1
• Comfort Room – 1
• Bedroom – 1
• Living room – 1

On a normal day

• Entrance Room – 1
• Comfort Room – 3
• Bedroom – 3
• Living room – 3

On a miracle day (deep cleaning day)

• Entrance Room – 4
• Comfort Room – 4
• Bedroom – 4
• Living room – 4

While doing this, I won’t be guilty that I’m not “doing my best”. After all, I’m still doing my best on each level. If it’s level 1, you’d know I’m obliterating all the dust I could see.

They say if you want to overcome perfectionism, you need to be comfortable with “good enough”. I don’t buy that shit. I’d still have cognitive dissonance if I feel like I’m not doing my best. With the mental scheme of classifying different levels of effort or output in my tasks, I could still do my best in whatever level I decide to take action on.

How to apply this to other areas?

Reading books

1. Elementary reading – reading to develop vocabulary or literacy skills.
2. Inspectional reading – reading to get the overall structure and main points of the book. Skim reading.
3. Analytical reading – reading to evaluate the arguments of the author. Slow reading.
4. Syntopical reading – reading multiple books and comparing them with one another

Source: How to Read a Book – Amazon (you can use this referral link to support this site)

Push ups

1. Wall push ups
2. Knee push ups
3. Normal push ups
4. Decline push ups
5. One-arm wall push ups
6. One-arm knee push ups
7. One-arm normal push ups
8. One-arm decline push ups

Source: startbodyweight.com

Gym

1. 15 mins. One muscle area only
2. 30 mins. Two muscle areas
3. 45 mins. Three muscle areas

Know what you want

The thing with this is, you have to know the big picture. You need to know the end that you want in order to categorize the progress towards that end.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

For example, in push ups, if you have the end in mind, which can be one-arm decline push ups, then you can figure out what it looks like halfway there – the midpoint – which is decline push ups. And then figure out halfway from the start to the midpoint. And then halfway from the midpoint to the end. You can slice it up however much you want.