I’m beavering away on the chapter of Mothers Work that’s devoted to the idea of ditching or delegating domestic tasks to free us up for more interesting things. I’m inviting working mums to tell me how they go for ‘good enough’ on the home front via a short survey (please do it anonymously or leave your name to go in the book) and have been musing on what good enough might mean…
I think the good enough mindset is really about being comfortable with not doing something to the best of your ability but to a sufficient level. What is good enough or sufficient to you may be over the top or not enough to someone else and several of the 30 women I asked said it doesn’t come naturally to them. Sarah says she’s getting there though: “I hate the good enough mind set as I was fastidious about domestic chores before children. I think you have to eventually accept it otherwise you would go mad. I would much rather spend time with my daughter than clean plus with a toddler everything in the house gets messy very quickly.”
I think there are two good ways to develop the good enough habit. One is to draw a time boundary for a specific task, for instance, 15 minutes to give the kitchen a one over at the end of the day. When the oven time beeps you walk away and revel in how good you are at being disciplined (I’ve found through my coaching work that being disciplined in one aspect of life helps with other areas too which is good news if you’re trying to stick to an exercise regime or save money). The second approach is to imagine the domestic task in front of you done to perfection and then do it to 50% of that standard. Not easy to quantify I know, although the mum who told me she only irons the front of things has clearly got it!
The survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7SGLSVP
