“Hurry up and get out of the bathroom, you look fine!”

How many times have I said that to one kid or another? Time after time I’m trying to get the kids to complete a task and move on to the next thing. They seem to take forever, obsessing over the smallest detail.

On the flip side, there are far too many times that I’ve read one or another the riot act for not doing a job well enough. At least not to the degree that I want it done. In our household, when we’re cleaning my Mom is the gold standard. If I want something cleaned to the point that dust is afraid to return, I say “Clean it like Grandma Juanita would”. Of course, cleaning that well takes a certain amount of practice, dedication, and care. Frankly, no one in my household quite has the knack to meet that standard. We try, but we don’t quite get there. When I set the kids on a cleaning task “like Grandma Juanita would”, I’m pretty much setting them up for failure. That doesn’t stop me from complaining that they failed to meet the standard, but in the back of my mind I know what I’ve done.

So there it is…the double standard. Hurry up, but be perfect. At the root of it, that’s my problem. I’m a perfectionist. At least deep down in my psyche I am. If you look around my office you’d question that statement. I’m not exactly a neat freak in here. The house is pretty much the same. I often convince myself it’s because we have up to 12 people living here on a semi-permanent basis, but let’s face it…people with a lot going on can choose to keep their house immaculate. I’m not one of those people, and as they say “The fish rots from the head”, so my leadership in that category gives us the messy house.

But, I am a perfectionist. I expect that everything will be done correctly. If it’s not done correctly the first time (it happens), then I expect that the work will be redone to the original standard or better. When I’m doing the work, that’s how I approach things. When somebody else is doing something, I don’t expect to have to say “if you didn’t do it right, go back and redo it”. I expect that attitude to be ingrained in everybody.

And there’s the rub. Some things just aren’t worth doing perfectly. There, I’ve said it. I’ll even repeat it for emphasis:

Some things aren’t worth doing perfectly.

When you think about it, that’s a somewhat astonishing statement. It rocks the foundation of the perfectionist ideal. If my Mom reads this, I hope she’s sitting down. It’s not something that we perfectionists recognize. The echoes of our culture are all about us, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”. As a perfectionist, I’ve always heard that as, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing perfectly”. I was always told to take pride in my work. Do it right the first time.

Heck, some of the greatest orators and writers of all time have weighed in on the subject:

Well done is better than well said. Benjamin Franklin

The reward of a thing well done is having done it. Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is once well done is done forever. Henry David Thoreau

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly. Plato

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. Jonas Salk

(Snotty Remark: I’ll admit it, the last one is more of a threat than all that motivational, but he does have a point. Get the job done and you have the opportunity to do more jobs, hopefully some that you’ll like.)

(thanks to http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/well_done.html for those quotes)

Talk about taking on some of the best and brightest who have ever been around. These guys are some heavy hitters! But I’m here pleading with you to consider that some things just aren’t worth doing perfectly. Quit reading well as perfectly. For instance, when you take out the garbage there is a certain goal in mind, namely getting the garbage all the way to the trash can. The right way, in my world, is for all the garbage to travel in the bag all the way out to the trash can. No walking back to pick up the Kleenex that fell on the sidewalk. No stooping to pick up the cereal box that got away. One trip. Neat, clean, simple. But honestly, so what if you have to bop back and grab the Kleenex and the cereal box. Is it that big a deal. So the first trip wasn’t perfect.

Taking out the trash is worth doing, and worth doing well. But agonizing over the perfection in taking out the trash is pointless. Honestly, don’t we have better things to worry about?

I catch myself distressing over small tasks that I delegate to the kids. I want the job done a certain way, and when they don’t meet that expectation I, often as not, go ballistic. I’ve even said things like, “You are welcome to do this job any way you want, as long as you do it my way. There are dozens of wrongs ways, and there’s my way.” Sometimes I don’t even add the phrase “and my way is the right way” part. That’s pretty much a given.

Seriously, I’ve said it loads of times. Idiotic, I know. It’s not really delegation if I have to control every aspect of the job. Don’t bring up the exceptions here (there is only one right way to light the dynamite so you don’t blow your hand off kind of thing) , that’s going to ruin my point.

Stick with me on this…what’s more important: Getting a job accomplished, or getting it done your way? I don’t like to admit that I don’t know the best way to do every task. Heck, sometimes I don’t even know a good way to do the task. But I’m still micromanaging the kids when I tell them to take out the garbage. To use a business metaphor, I’m treating them like employees instead of independent contractors. I’m looking to direct every part of their jobs, and I expect them to only apply creativity to the tasks when it really doesn’t matter.

What I should be doing is treating them like independent contractors. Like black boxes if you will. I need to define the outcome that I’m looking for. The end result. Then I need to communicate that clearly to them. Then it’s in their court. I really shouldn’t care about how the job gets done. There would be so much more harmony in our household if I would just concentrate on the outcomes and not the steps towards that result. Sure, there are teachable moments along the way, “Ummm, I know that it seemed like a good idea at the time, but how do anticipate getting all the trash off the roof after you threw the bag over the garage” sorts of things. Sure, there are some things that I think I know, from my years of experience, that I might be able to pass on. Then again, there’s a lot of creativity out there that I haven’t been exposed to. Heck, I might even learn a good, better, or best way to do a task. Let’s face it, I won’t have my free laborers around here for ever, they’re going to move out someday. I might was well learn from them while they’re here. Right?

So my nugget of wisdom for today: Some things aren’t worth doing perfectly.

Now, find a bunch of jobs for your kids and set them to it. Sit back and relax with a bowl of ice cream and let them work away. Don’t worry, everything will get done eventually. And if everything doesn’t get done, well…

Some things aren’t worth doing perfectly.