Perfection Leads to Procrastination

I used to say that I was a perfectionist, based on my personality and zodiac sign.  Now I'm not so sure I want to have that title.

Here's a question for you:  If you sweep/vacuum/mop your floors, and someone finds a missed spot once you're done, should you have never swept/vacuumed/mopped at all?

I hope you answered that it was still good to clean the floors.  If we looked at the task of cleaning the floors from a perfectionist point of view, we would never do it!  For example, the perfectionist might say, "If I know they are going to get dirty again not even five minutes later, what would be the point to clean them now?"  In this way, perfection leads to procrastination.  Why do a task if it won't be perfect?

I think I've had a little help from my four furry cat friends in understanding this process.  I used to hate dust mopping and vacuuming the floors because, inevitably, the four felines would shed hair back on them almost immediately!  When I finally realized that if I did dust mop and vacuum on a regular basis, there was a smaller pile of hair to remove versus if I didn't do it at all until it was unbearable, I started to enjoy banishing those tiny dust bunnies (or are they dust kitties since they came from cats?) to the trash.  It became almost a game to me to see how I could outsmart them by dusting and vacuuming to remove the hair so that they had to shed it back on the carpet and floors all over again!  Ok, it's a little silly, but if I waited until the moment that I could vacuum and dust mop and there would be no dust bunnies for a good long time, it would have never happened because I can't imagine ever living without animals in the house!  And if not hair from them, dirt from the bottoms of our sneakers after doing yard work!

So, let's not let our perfectionism lead to procrastination.  Do it now to enjoy it now.  Join me in finishing all the laundry, even though you know you're wearing clothes that will go into the hamper tonight.  Join me in washing all the dishes, even though you know you'll add the glass you're drinking from to the sink later.  After all, later there will be that much less to tackle.