2 Perfectionist Tips That Will Free Up Your Time, Brain, and Energy

Looking for perfectionist tips that will help you overcome perfectionism? Just want to write better to-do lists in your bullet journal or be more productive? Click through for 2 great tips!

Iโ€™m not a perfectionist in the traditional sense.

Iโ€™ve published dozens of blog posts that contain typos. Iโ€™ll leave the house knowing thereโ€™s a tiny coffee stain on my shirt and pretend it happened in transit. Iโ€™ll happily cobble together a meal from a wilting green pepper and some freezer-burned corn and then yell about how Iโ€™m pretty much Julia Child.

I mean, I wrote a blog post entitled โ€œIt Doesnโ€™t Have To Be Perfect, It Just Has To Be Something.โ€

But Iโ€™ll also spend weeks โ€“ or months! โ€“ polishing and editing and fussing over an ebook thatโ€™s already 99% amazing. Iโ€™ll wander into the kitchen at 10 pm โ€œjust to wipe down the countersโ€ โ€ฆ and then itโ€™s 45 minutes later and Iโ€™m defrosting the freezer. Iโ€™ll spend so long tweaking a client proposal that I almost miss the deadline.

Of course, truly getting over perfectionism is the work of a lifetime and probably lots of therapy. But while youโ€™re doing that deeper work, here are two surprisingly effective tips that have helped me get out of my own way and get on with my totally-not-perfect-but-still-awesome life!

2 perfectionist tips that will free up your time, brain, and energy

Set a โ€˜good enoughโ€™ timer

Are you working on a task that doesnโ€™t have a due date, defined finish line, and โ€“ if weโ€™re being honest โ€“ isnโ€™t wildly important?

Iโ€™m talking about stuff like

  • Clearing out your closet
  • Updating your photo albums or scrapbooks
  • Detailing the car
  • Researching and purchasing the worldโ€™s most perfect pots and pans (<- real thing Iโ€™ve devoted a surprising amount of time to recently)

If tasks like these flip your perfectionist switch and culminate with you using a toothbrush on your baseboards at 2 am, do yourself a favor:
If youโ€™re prone to perfectionism, set a โ€˜good enoughโ€™ timer. If you donโ€™t know when youโ€™ve reached โ€˜good enough,โ€™ at least your phone will. Share on X
Think about how long you can reasonably expect yourself to work on this task without wearing yourself down to a grumpy, sulky nub. Reduce that number by 25%.

Set your timer, work on your task, and when the timer dings, youโ€™re done. Youโ€™ve officially reached the โ€˜good enoughโ€™ point. Congrats!

Now go make yourself a cup of tea and read a magazine or something.

Set time-based goals rather than completion-based goals

We humans are shockingly bad at estimating how long things will take.

For years, when Iโ€™d make my daily to-do list, Iโ€™d write things like โ€œfinish client proposalโ€ or โ€œupdate old blog posts.โ€ Then Iโ€™d sit down to finish that client proposal only to emerge five hours later, frazzled, exhausted, patently not-finished, and disappointed with myself. Fun!

And I did this all over my life! โ€œFinish landscaping front yard,โ€ โ€œPlan Staceyโ€™s birthday party,โ€ and โ€œFigure out SEPโ€ were all items on my to-do list I mistakenly believed I could hammer out in 30-60 minutes.

Reader, I could not, in fact, landscape my front yard in 30 minutes.

Instead, I started to break my unrealistic, self-defeating to-do lists into time-based segments. When I had a huge, time-consuming goal, Iโ€™d break it into small, doable steps and give myself a set amount of time to work on each step.

โ€œSpend 30 minutes researching lodging + activities for upcoming Denver trip.โ€
โ€œRake leaves for 45 minutes.โ€
โ€œWork on new ebook for one hour.โ€

Do I always complete the task in the allotted time? I do not. But I kept my commitment to myself and did what I set out to do. Keeping your promises to yourself is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

Many of the tasks Iโ€™m working on would take up an afternoon or entire days if I let them. Iโ€™d overwork, burn myself out, give up, and feel like I failed.

But when I set time-based goals rather than completion-based goals, Iโ€™m setting myself up for success. I can check that item off my to-do list and go to bed knowing I did what I said I was going to do.

I want to hear from you! Do you identify as a perfectionist? How does perfectionism show up in your life? If youโ€™ve gotten past it, share your tips in the comments so we can learn from you!

P.S. If youโ€™re looking to break your perfectionist habits, this can help. And itโ€™s free!

Photo by Jess Watters on Unsplash

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7 Comments

  1. Maggie

    Cosigned SO HARD. This is honestly how I get myself to tackle huge piles of dishes. โ€œJust set a timer for 15 minutes and get as much done as you can.โ€ More often than not, all I need is 15 minutes, but Iโ€™d put it off because Iโ€™d convince myself Iโ€™d need, like, an hour, and the activation energy to tackle an โ€œhourโ€™sโ€ worth of dishes was too much! Iโ€™m using this to clean my apartment in preparation for my aunt and uncleโ€™s visit this weekend. One hour and done.

    • Sarah Von Bargen

      Yes to โ€˜onlyโ€™ cleaning for an hour!

  2. Heidi

    HA! Sarah, I was just reading about type One on the Enneagram (The Perfectionist), and I thought, โ€œEnough of this. Letโ€™s go see whatโ€™s new over at Yes and Yes.โ€

    My desire for perfection manifests as procrastination and flat-out refusing to start anything I might not be good at. Your tips will help me to try things and to tackle big projects more effectively.

    • Sarah Von Bargen

      Ha! Thatโ€™s so funny! I havenโ€™t taken the Enneagram but from what Iโ€™ve heard, Iโ€™m pretty sure Iโ€™m a 1 :/

  3. Katharine

    I did #2 for writing my book! Rather than setting word count or chapter goals, Iโ€™d plan 3 hours of writing, or one hour of editing, or whatever fit in my day, and then work with as much focus as I could during that time. It worked great, kept me on track, and minimized the frustrating โ€œI want to go to bed and Iโ€™m struggling to write this scene but I havenโ€™t hit my word count for the dayโ€ moments. And long as I reached my time goal, I knew I was still getting the work done!

  4. Siรขn

    Hi! Iโ€™m new to your blog and just ADORE your advice! Brilliant and relatable direction, thank you! I canโ€™t wait to read more ๐Ÿ™‚ Siรขn x

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Yes and Yes
Looking for perfectionist tips that will help you overcome perfectionism? Just want to write better to-do lists in your bullet journal or be more productive? Click through for 2 great tips!
How To Motivate Yourself To Do The Boring Things You Need To Do
How To Decide When To Give Up On A Goal And When To Recommit
How To Stop Researching + Start Taking Action
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