Stop being a perfectionist and just do it already!

I should be packing.

But I wanted to share a realization I had recently.  

I feel like I keep my act together pretty good in most areas of my life.  I think I do a good job as a mom.  When I work, I'm pretty good at that.  I manage to make and keep friends easily.  But here's where I fall short.  

I suck at keeping my house up.  

I don't suck at every aspect of house keeping.  I can organize like nobody's business.  (Remember my shoe closet, spices and linen closet?)  

I'm such a perfectionist, that it actually makes my house dirtier.  That might not make sense, but I'll try to explain.  

If I can't do it perfectly, I won't do it at all.  And with my life the way it is, I have very little time to do anything perfectly.  

My realization came when I was putting a clean load of clothes in the dryer for probably the sixth time.  I was ready to tackle the dirty laundry mountain in the loft, but couldn't because there were clean, but wrinkled clothes in the dryer.  What normally happens is, I'll be ready to do laundry, but I'll have a load that needs folded in the dryer.  So I'll turn the dryer on to unwrinkle them, with every intention of coming back 20 minutes later to fold them.  Then life happens, and before I know it it's hours later and I have to refluff the clothes again before I can fold them and put them away.  Turn the dryer on, life happens, it's tomorrow.  And I never get to the mountain of laundry.  

I got so mad at myself and thought "Oh my God.  Just put them away already!!"  So, I folded and hung wrinkled clothes, and put them away in the closet.   Without the distraction of finding something else to do while the dryer fluffed my clean clothes, I was able to tackle several loads of laundry that day.   And I honestly don't even know which clothes were in that load anymore. Obviously they weren't that wrinkled! 

I've actually been keeping up with the laundry better with this new "stop-being-a-perfectionist-and-just-do-it-already" theory.  It's funny how being okay with being a little messy has led to it actually being much cleaner!  This is definitely something I'm going to try to transfer to all aspects of house cleaning.  I don't have to make the kitchen sparkle, JUST LOAD THE DISHWASHER!

And now I'm leaving for weeks on end, with no housework to do while I'm gone (except for some laundry and just picking up the few things we will bring with us).  But hopefully I can instill this in some other aspects on the trip.  Like, maybe, exercising.  I find myself thinking "I won't have access to my gym while I'm gone.  I guess I just won't work out for six weeks".  Where as the non-perfectionist Michele would think "I don't have to run a marathon, just go for a quick jog."  I really really hate running though....

I got this picture on Pinterest, btw

P.S. I'll be chronicling our adventure on instragram.  If you want to follow me my user name is milehighmom.