Hey Reader

Before we get into this week's tip, I just wanted to ask...

How organised are you?

While I find my planning-related organisation to be preeetty good, other life areas leave a lot to be desired 😅

Thankfully though, we have the biggest organising event of the year coming up in September. Double thankfully, it's free to attend!

Get Organized HQ Virtual 2025 is an online event designed to help you streamline and simplify your home and life.

With over 100 speakers (myself included 😛) you’ll find sessions on everything organisation-related, including:

• Decluttering
• Meal planning
• Digital organisation
• Cleaning
• Paper clutter

And more! 🥳

The event runs from September 8 - 13, and you can check out the full speaker lineup (and grab your free ticket) by hitting the button below 👇

If you can't make the event, or you want lifetime replays, worksheets, and session notes, there’s an optional All Access Pass available at a discounted rate too (time limited though!).

I've gotten my All Access Pass and started watching the sessions; so many good organisational tips! I hope you get value out of it too 😄

For now though, back to our regularly scheduled programming 📺

Let's beat perfectionism

Perfectionism has this sneaky tendency of creeping into everything...

Whether it's at work, at home, in our creative projects, or just in small, everyday tasks, perfectionism is there...lurking 👀

Sometimes it looks like spending hours tweaking a document that, realistically, was already "good enough".

It's there when we get frustrated for "messing up" a layout in our journals.

One of the worst ways perfectionism shows up though is when it keeps us from even starting something.

All too often I've been keen to get into something new but felt paralysed because

Right now, perfectionism is holding me back from working on my vows...which are due tomorrow 😂

While I'm not going to be able to cure our perfectionism with one email (maybe one day though 😝) I do have some tips that have been helpful for me so far.

Let's have a look!

The idea - 3 tools to combat perfectionism

Because perfectionism shows up and holds us back in so many ways, it's good to have multiple ways to combat it 💪

"Aim for 80%"

When I do something, I want to do it right. I want the finished outcome to be my best effort and know that I gave it 100%.

Giving 100% of ourselves to everything though is...a lot 😅

If we're constantly aiming to make everything we do the "best", that's time, effort, and energy that can't be spent on other things.

(The irony of what I just said is not wasted on me, given how much time I've spent trying to write the last three sentences 😂)

A lot of people will encourage us perfectionists to "just do it to 80% and move on".

This advice is often my least favourite though, mainly because the math-loving part of my brain sits there thinking "how do I quantify 80% of this project? 👀"

Instead of specifically aiming to do the thing "to 80%", I like to think of this more as an opportunity to ask myself:

We're not intentionally trying to really stuff something up here; I'm not asking you to go as far to swapping sugar for salt in a cookie recipe 😝 but this could look like:

• Writing your grocery list without rewriting it in neat handwriting
• Leaving that mistake in your journal without covering it up
• Putting some of the laundry away unfolded

Here we're taking a "done is better than perfect" approach to help us save our time and prevent unnecessary stress.

This can also act as a helpful part of our next procrastination-beating tool.

Gather evidence

Perfectionism tells us that if something isn't flawless, it's worthless. But is that really true?

(This is a hypothetical question. The answer is no, and I will hear no debate about it 😂)

While we can repeat mantras of "imperfect is perfect" and "good is better than great", what I find helps more is proof.

Rather than just saying we can do things imperfectly and it'll be fine, collecting evidence of when this was the case helps highlight that truth.

Maybe it was a forgotten detail while event planning, but everyone still had a great time.

Maybe you didn’t pack the right clothes for a holiday, but still enjoyed yourself and survived the weather.

Keeping a log of these times where "not perfect" was actually "good enough" can help us remember to not sweat the small stuff.

These instances can be recorded in your journal, or even just a note on your phone. Anytime perfectionism starts to rear its ugly head, just scan over the list for a reminder that perfect isn't actually a requirement; we can let small imperfections slide.

The Crappy First Draft™️

Perfectionism can all too often hold us back from even starting something.

Sometimes this is because we want the outcome to be perfect, but other times it's because we want the process to be perfect.

This happens a lot in goal-getting. We don't want to feel like we've wasted time on taking an inefficient route to get to our target so we put off starting at all.

One of the ways this manifests is by keeping ourselves in the "research" phase of a goal rather than taking any action (which we talked about in this newsletter).

Thankfully, our next tool can help with this.

Enter the "Crappy First Draft" mindset 😝

By labelling something as a draft, an experiment, or a test run, we instantly take away the pressure.

In our Crappy First Draft (CFD) of something, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to exist.

The best part of this approach is that once you have a "draft" of something, you have infinitely more to work with! And “something to work with” is always better than “got nothing, but overthinking.”

The CFD doesn't have to be a physical thing, but it can look like:

• A trial run of a new morning routine
• A sketch of a new planner layout you think will help you
• A first attempt at outlining your next big project, even if it’s just bullet points on a scrap of paper
• A draft version of an email before you go and make it actually (hopefully 😝) good

Let's take action

In the week ahead, pick one tactic to try out in an area that perfectionism holds you back.

• Pick something you can intentionally do at 80% rather than 100%
• Gather evidence of times you weren't perfect but things turned out fine, or
• Start something, calling it your "crappy first draft"

If you're up for it, I'd love to hear what area of perfectionism you'll be tackling and which tactic you chose, whether it's one of these three or another one 😄

Until next time!

- Jess

Sick of setting goals that don't get achieved? Learn the system everyday goal-getters are using to make EPIC things happen.