the power of “good enough”
Last weekend I was reminded of how grateful I am my husband and I are one the same page when it comes to our approach to tasks.
We hired someone to whack back our monstrous laurel hedge and remove the trimmings. He did a great job on the former, but as with many Craig’s List hires, went dark before job completion. Once it became clear we needed to finish, we took it on together. While a wheelbarrow sure would’ve been nice, rakes and armfuls did the job adequately, abeit slowly and inelegantly.
While a simple, even a bit dirty, basic manual labor task, it was a joy to do. What made it so?
- We both wanted to do the job.
- We looked forward to working together.
- We picked a mutually convenient time, not to early, or too late to be rushed and it was dry and the sun was shining (a sometimes rare and blessed event here in the Northwest between November and April)
- We clearly divided our roles in responsibilities (I raked, he filled), and didn’t mind bumping into each other if we did.
- We shared our problem solving and best practices with an open mind (”Use the rakes like salad tongs to pick up the leaves! Let’s top it off with the larger pieces. Probably still a good idea to tie it down before taking off.”)
- We were flexible enough to realize when we both needed to share the same task and co-ordinated our actions (aka the truck dance).
- We didn’t sweat the small stuff. (We did not pick up every leaf. We were surprised it was going to take two truckloads. It got finished on a later day. We were both ok with that.)
- We were good-natured and gracious with each other (”No, didn’t consider you pokey at all! Thanks for the help.” No who-did-more-than-who ’scorekeeping’.) and simply enjoyed getting the job done.
Why am I so grateful for such a simple task? Because so often it’s made much more complicated, whether in accomplishing work in the home, workplace or community. It strips not only the simply productivity out of getting the work done, but the joy as well.
It’s a source for continued friction, by either how the work is done, or the stress of the work not being done, sometimes in response to fear of criticism of the work not being done well enough.
Of course there are times where more is needed than “good enough”. Or one person is satisfied with “good enough” and the other is not. An excellent topic for a future post?
Wishing you if not an excellent, at least a “good enough” day that brings you great pleasure as is.
