by admin

20 ways to be a perfectionist.

We grow up with the phrase “Nobody’s perfect.” We also get told to do our ‘best’ and that’s all we can do. There’s no shame in trying, and success is a bunch of failures strung together, so we learn what not to do. What If I told you we *could* be perfect. What if I said your best isn’t good enough, that there is shame in trying and failing, and that success isn’t learning based on a bunch of failures. With the following tips I will show you how to be a perfectionist. Never settle for second best.

  1. Be highly critical of your own mistakes. You’re not perfect until you’re perfect. Keep trying if you don’t meet certain expectations.
  2. Never get any projects done because it’s ‘never good enough’. Trust me it isn’t even NEAR good enough.
  3. Obsess over minor details, the smaller the better.
  4. Fear failure; you can’t fail; you will not fail; not even once.
  5. Never think in shades of gray, it’s either perfect or it isn’t.
  6. Beat yourself up because you’re just not perfect like you should be.
  7. Take yourself very seriously.
  8. Don’t give yourself an inch.
  9. Constantly moan and complain to others about your mistakes.
  10. Remember everything you do is wrong.
  11. Start to revise or re-factor from the start, don’t wait until things are done, you are a perfectionist after all.
  12. You need to redo that project just one more time.
  13. Anything that is less than perfect is unacceptable; just get that in your mind right now!
  14. Having high standards is great, having impossible standards is even better.
  15. Just remember you are NEVER happy with what you have produced, and you never will.
  16. Don’t focus on the end result or the big picture, only focus on the details.
  17. Aim to be the best in everything you do, even if you don’t do it very well or don’t like it.
  18. Spend your time on the 80% that doesn’t matter rather than the 20 that does.
  19. Feature creep is the perfectionist’s friend. Feature creep is the phenomenon where you have more things you want to put in that keeps creeping up on you until you’re covered with it. It’s never going to be perfect unless it has tons and tons of features.
  20. It’s all or nothing.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

Use a schedule to be lazier

Typically we impose schedules on ourselves because we want to be productive and so we know exactly what we’re doing. It gives our day structure and focus. It also tends to keep us on track. Here at ‘Monday’ we want to be lazy, and do as little work as possible. So to that end we want to invert a daily work schedule to make time for things that aren’t required, things that are easy and/or fun.

So one of the things is to assign larger blocks of time. Task switching takes mental energy and effort. We don’t want to take any effort to do anything, so the larger the better. Somewhere in the range of one to two hours.

Next you want breaks something to refresh you. This is contrary to the “Do less in more time” article however when we’re creating a schedule to be more lazy we pay attention to that. In this case the schedule is inverted. We take 5 – 10 minutes to do some work. Now contrary to the philosophy of ‘Monday’ is actually being productive, but in this case the amount of productivity is so small that being productive is not contrary to being lazy. Basically this recharges you for whatever else you’re not doing. Say watching TV. You spent two hours watching TV, and now you need a break because you grow a bit restless. When you do work this re-increases motivation to do nothing for two more hours.

Also you usually schedule in time for rest which is usually at least 30 minutes, but for us, we can schedule an hour. This I would advocate doing work like above only the work I suggest is busywork. Shuffling papers, rearranging emails, etc. Something that does no work but keeps you busy. This is just purely for relaxation where the 5-10 minutes in between tasks is to keep you recharged as you spend your day doing nothing. This would be a great way to put some pop tarts in the toaster, since you’re not going to be spending the effort to cook anyways.
I realize this is a short article, but there’s not much to making a schedule. Just realize that you will want to be flexible and make time for doing stuff like going to the bathroom or eating lunch and breakfast.

Here’s a typical lazy schedule for me:

  • 7 AM – wake up
  • 8 AM – Sit around
  • 9 AM – Get some breakfast preferably cold leftovers from last night so you don’t have to prepare anything
  • 10 AM – Watch some TV
  • 12 noon – snack on some chips because making lunch takes too long
  • 1 PM – Watch more TV
  • 3 PM – take a nap
  • 5 PM – Realize it’s too much work to fill the rest of this out and stop.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

Do less in more time!

We here at ‘Monday’ like to do as little work as possible, and to that end I’d like to present some advice on how to do less in more time. Slacking is an art form, especially when it comes to make it look like you’re not slacking. A famous quote goes something like “Keep slacking, but don’t ‘look’ like you’re trying to slack. I don’t know slack casual.” That’s whole point of this, do less work and spend more time doing it.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. So 80% of your work comes from 20% of your time. Now if you wanted to do more in less time, you’d probably focus on that 20%, but since we want to take more time and do less work, you need to figure out what takes 80% of your time, the stuff that doesn’t produce anything and focus on that. Focus on the 80% that doesn’t matter.

Parkinson’s Law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. So what’s the obvious conclusion? Allow more time for completion. The more time you add the more time you work. Of course I don’t know if this means you work more because you have more time, or work less. Actually we don’t care if we work less, just get less accomplished so that works.

Don’t do work in low intense bursts. You would accomplish more if you time boxed or essentially spent less time and worked harder. We don’t like working harder, we like taking it easy. Spread tasks out that should be done in a few hours to cover a few days. You want to work on low energy so you don’t actually get anymore done. Work slavishly until you’re so tired you’re about to drop. Basically when we’re refreshed we can work more effectively, so try not to work effectively by wearing yourself out.

Remember big large overwhelming goals and don’t split it up. The larger the goal the longer it takes. This is actually contrary to being lazy, however, not getting anything accomplished is just as good of a goal is being lazy. Remember busywork is your friend. Use it. Don’t take breaks either. Focus on doing work and not finishing projects. Don’t ever delegate, because it might make you more productive, instead try to do everything yourself.

Finally Clutter. Live in a messy house, and a messy desk. Keeping clean takes time; it also motivates you when everything is in its place. Instead be disheveled, disorganized, and disordered. If you can’t find anything, you can’t get any work done right?

These are just a few of the tips. There are more that I may introduce in a later article. So in summary, focus on what doesn’t matter, allow yourself tons of time, big goals you can’t possibly finish, work a lot but try not to get much accomplished, don’t take breaks, add clutter to your life and you’ll soon be doing less in more time.

Until ‘Monday’