From where I sit I can hear my daughters putting away their laundry. At ages eight and five they are not going to be efficient or highly organized with this task. And that is OK.

You see, I have enough to do with the rest of managing this house, plus homeschooling the girls, being a wife, mother, sister and daughter, and keeping myself sane and healthy. So when my husband suggested that their bed be raised so they could have a little changing room underneath I loved the idea. I loved it mostly because from the dimensions he was talking about I wouldn’t fit in it easily. That meant that it would force the idea of them putting away their own clothes into becoming a reality. Do they do it perfectly? Nope. Do I care? Another, nope.

The same goes for the rest of the chores around the house. You see, as FlyLady says, “Housework done incorrectly will still bless your family.” Essentially, when I let my five year old loose with the Swiffer it doesn’t matter that she necessarily stays in the room I assigned. Wherever that Swiffer goes it is picking up cat hair and dust. When I tell the girls to grab cleaning wipes and clean doorknobs and light switches I don’t care which ones they clean. Through a month of Fridays they will get most of them through pure randomness. If something needs sanitized I take care of it. Their task is to keep these touch points from getting sticky.

Even imperfect flowers make nectar.

I am learning to apply this principal to my own efforts in the house. “Housework done incorrectly will still bless your family.” So what if every corner of the kitchen was not swept today? It will be swept again soon enough. So what if I don’t have time to do a deep clean on my bathroom. I have time to clean the toilet and put away the 3 random toys and throw the change of kids clothes into the hamper in the laundry room. So what if I don’t have the mental or emotional space to declutter my entire living room today? I can take 5 minutes and tidy away what is on the couch and put yet another change of clothes…and somehow four pairs of socks?… into the laundry room.

While I am at it, why don’t I try applying this thought to (most of) the rest of life?

It’s not like I perform brain surgery or have to calibrate a launch trajectory for a spacecraft. I am writing blog posts. I am running errands. I am working to maintain my health. None of this requires perfection. It just needs to be good.

An good blog post is infinitely better than the “perfect” post that never gets started. Getting three out of four errands done in one outing is better that waiting for the “perfect” day to get all four done. The very idea of maintaining a “perfect” diet and exercise plan is exhausting right now. So, yeah, how about I just stay conscious of what I eat and get back to taking regular walks? And I do not want a “perfect” garden. My children like to munch on some of the wild greens, and blow dandelion fluff balls.

If I am aiming for perfection then these things will never be finished, and most of them would never be started because I know that it would be impossible, so why even try?

In a way good enough is perfect because it is done. Trying to perfect anything in our daily lives is a complete waste of time. Time you could be using elsewhere. You know, like drinking your tea or coffee while it’s still warm, or taking that walk you have been promising yourself you would take for a week now.

It does not have to be perfect. It has to be better. Aim for good enough. And perhaps if we string a couple months of good enoughs together we can get within throwing distance of the ever illusive “perfect”. In reality, that is perfection.

Perfect gardens do not have lady bugs or praying mantises or dragon flies. Only imperfect gardens, those with six-legged food on feet crawling and flying around, draw these beautiful and intriguing insects.

I am not saying we should invite insects into our lives and homes. I am saying if we let go of the idea that perfection is even possible we may take a bubble bath in a bathroom that could use a little more attention behind the toilet. We may invite a good friend over for lunch if we get over the idea of the dining room being a catch-all for coats this season. We may move our lives forward if we let go of the idea of the perfect way to achieve our goals.

There is no perfect.

There is trying. There is learning. There is good. There is done.

And in all that, there is life.