The Thinking Yogi
by Kerry Maiorca

May 2006: The virtues of doing a good-enough job

You probably know the feeling – you’re short on time and have a project looming that, although it’s not challenging or difficult, you can’t seem to get done. There’s always another excuse for why you shouldn’t take it on now: you’re not prepared, you’re not in the mood, you could do a better job if you waited until later. But what happens when ‘later’ never comes and the project just keeps waiting and waiting?

My mom’s side of the family has a joke that their motto is ‘It’s good enough.’ While it was said with tongue firmly in cheek, I have come to love the sentiment behind it. At first it may strike you as careless to aim for doing just a ‘good-enough job’ on something that you deem to be important. But in my experience regardless of your attitude when you start a project, once you begin you are bound to take it on with your full self and to do better than a ‘good-enough job.’

Many of us grew up with the idea of giving everything our best, but haven’t you ever just felt like you didn’t have your ‘best’ work in you? On those days when your best seems out of reach, you can use your new good-enough attitude to motivate yourself to take on any task that awaits.

Whether it’s a project at work or cleaning out your refrigerator, aiming for a good-enough effort will make it much easier to get started. My favorite tool for good-enough projects is a timer. I set the timer for a period of time that seems manageable, maybe 15 or 30 minutes, and tell myself that I’ll work for just as long as that timer is on. It helps to have the type of timer that ticks audibly, because you’ll find it makes you want to work faster and more efficiently – it almost becomes a game of beat the clock!

When the timer rings you’re finished and freed from your project, regardless of what’s left to do. In time you may discover that what started out as a project you couldn’t bring yourself to start will become one that you wish you didn’t have to stop. While undertaking a recent cleaning project with my trusty timer, the mail carrier rang our doorbell and it took a few minutes to receive the package. When I came back to my project I told myself I was allowed a few extra minutes because of the distraction. I was actually bargaining for more time to clean my refrigerator!

The key to this method is to truly stop when the timer rings. If you make a habit of going over your timer, subconsciously projects will again take on their daunting proportions. The timer’s objectivity frees you from having to worry about whether you’ve worked long enough or done the job well enough. With this method, as long as you’ve started and stuck to your timer, you’ve done well enough for today.

If you ever feel a reluctance to get to yoga, this can also be a great way to frame your practice. You may know subconsciously that practicing will make you feel better, but sometimes it’s difficult to muster up the energy to get to your mat. You may worry that you won’t have as much oompfh for your poses as normal, but it doesn’t matter. More than anything else, yoga is a practice of being good-enough. It’s a practice that invites you to come as you are today, right now, regardless of the circumstances. Maybe that means using more support in your poses and or maybe that means you practice only restorative poses. Regardless of what you ‘do’ for your yoga practice, simply showing up is all that’s required.

So take the pressure off, forget all the high-minded talk about bringing your best self to your life and instead just show up, do a good-enough job, and see what happens.