529: The Difference Between Not Enough and Better

Dana K White: A Slob Comes Clean

Dana K. White discusses the psychological shift from viewing mistakes as 'not enough' to seeing them as 'better' than before. Using a person

Key takeaways

• The 'nine times out of 10' rule helps prevent the self-defeating thought process that one mistake negates all progress.
• Shifting focus from perfection to 'better' prevents the paralysis often caused by overwhelming cleaning tasks.

Main topics

• Mindset shifts
• Home management strategies

Notable quotes

Nine times out of 10 is still good.

Conclusion

The episode provides a motivational framework for maintaining househol

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, y'all. I am so excited to tell you that it's time to pre-order my newest book, Procrastinators Get Stuff Done. It comes out on October 6th. And if you pre-order, you will get access to some really cool bonuses, including four exclusive podcasts. Go to danakwhite.com slash procrastinate to find out more about the book and how to order and how to claim your pre-order bonuses. That's danakwhite.com slash procrastinate. Welcome to A Slob Comes Clean, the podcast. I am Dana K. White. I share my personal deslobification process. As I figure out ways to keep my own home under control, I share the truth about cleaning and organizing strategies that actually work in real life for real people. Even people who don't love cleaning and organizing like me. Thanks for joining me today. This is podcast number 529. And I think I'm going to call it. I have a couple ideas running through my brain. One of them is nine times out of 10 is still good. And another one is the difference between not enough and better. Probably going to go with the not enough and better thing. So I thought about this as I was driving my daughter to college about, it's probably been right around a month ago from when I'm recording this. And we take a several days to drive her to school so she can have her car. And then I fly back. And then we were on our last night and we had tried to make so much good time, like make up so much ground, whatever people say about driving stuff. Right. And we were exhausted. It was the end of the day. And we had like kind of kept going and going and going so we could get as close as we could so that we'd only have a couple hours to go in the morning the next day when she actually needed to be there. So we get to the hotel. And I immediately, as I do, took my shower and put my pajamas on. Like I was like, I'm done. I'm out. And then I realized I didn't have a water bottle. And this was not a fancy hotel that gives you water bottles. This was the kind where you have to have your own water bottles or you have to go get one. And I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, I need water. I'm going to die. Not really. That's me being dramatic. That's the thoughts that are going through my mind when I'm exhausted like that. And I was like, okay, I am going to just put on enough clothes over my pajamas. And I saw a vending machine out there that had water bottles in it. And that's what I'm going to do because I do not want to actually go outside right now. I think it was even raining. So I get a, I, you know, go kind of. slink along the hallway. So nobody sees me because I was basically still in my pajamas to the vending machine and get my water bottle. Well, in getting ready to go get the water bottle, I'd looked at my purse and I was like, okay, most places still, most places now have like where you can use a debit card or a credit card for a vending machine. And I was like, but what if this is one of those places that doesn't, it's kind of a small, smaller area. And I was like, okay, I want to have everything I need. Cause I don't want to have to go twice. And so I had dug through my purse looking for change, which I used to have a lot more change in my purse than I do these days, but whatever. So I had dumped my purse out on the bed and dug around for change, got what I thought I needed, went and got the water bottle. And when I came back, I guess what I did was I shoved everything back in my purse. And I actually, I actually did throw away some receipts. Because I was like, well, I might as well use this as an opportunity for that. But I guess I had just shoved things that had fallen out of certain pockets back into the main part of the purse. And so we get to take my daughter, you know, she gets all moved into her dorm. And I happened to be looking in my purse and I realized. I don't have my driver's license. My driver's license is not in the pocket on the outside of my purse. That is, I, it's always there. Like I always put it in this pocket. And my first thought was, oh no, I did what I used to do, which is just shove it in there and not zip it closed. And then when I would throw my purse in the back of the car. all of the cards would fly out. So I go looking in her car to find them. Well, they're not there either. Speaker 1 (4:44) And so like, I think I had one credit card in this little pocket, but no driver's license and no cards. And I was supposed to fly home. And so I was, I was a little, not a little, I was starting to get a little panicked because I thought, do I really have to drive two hours back? Because I actually had a speaking event that night. And I was like, do I have to drive the two hours back to the hotel where we stayed? Which. It's now in the middle of the day and it's probably going to be bad traffic. And then two more hours back, not get to enjoy having lunch with her before I don't see her for several months, probably till Thanksgiving. And also like, it was just this, it was this moment of like, how did I let this happen again? And what's extra funny is that in my new book, Procrastinators Get Stuff Done, I actually tell a story about. putting my cards back in that pocket and zipping it because I have learned the hard way what happens when I don't. So I was so irritated with myself that it had happened that I could not find my cards, couldn't find my driver's license, like the thing I absolutely had to have to be able to fly. Speaker 1 (6:01) didn't have it. And I was like, no, I know better. No, I have a routine. I have a habit. I have a conviction. I have a passion. I do this thing. I always put them back in this, this, what is it? Pocket. This is gonna be a great podcast. I always put them back in this pocket. I always zip it shut because I know what happens when it, when I don't do that. And I mean, I called the hotel to ask if they had found them. They called me back a couple hours later to say, no, we're so sorry we didn't find them. And at that point, I had found them. Thankfully, they were actually in the main part of my purse because I guess when I picked everything up and shoved it all back in the purse, I didn't separate out the things that should have gone in the pocket, whatever. Y'all know I have issues, right? That's why we're here today together. But my point is I was so frustrated with myself that a good habit that I had established, I hadn't done it this one time. And the natural thing that happens in my brain in those moments is, oh no. why does this always happen to me? Oh no, I can't believe that I do things like this. I can't believe that I didn't do what I was supposed to do with my driver's license. And now I, you know, at the time I was thinking I was going to drive two hours there and two hours back all in the day when I was also supposed to do a speaking thing. Like, I mean, it was just, it was crazy, right? Like I was so irritated with myself because I thought I have failed. Speaker 1 (7:49) at this thing that I thought I had conquered. And then I went, Dana, as someone who talks about this stuff for y'all, for everybody, not just for myself, I went, what would I say to somebody else in that same situation? You know what? Nine times out of 10 is not bad. The fact that I now have this routine of double checking to make sure that I have zipped that. pocket and that I have put whatever card I got out back in that pocket and zipped it. The fact that I have that is not negated by the fact that one time I messed up. Because if I let myself think that this negates all the good things that I've been doing, the things that I've worked, that I've really tried hard on, if I let myself think that, And then I give up and I don't see the point. But also the reason I have to have some like, I'm sorry, there's probably a lot of people in this world. If you're watching this podcast, welcome. This is what it's like to look inside the brain of the people who probably bewilder you. I mean, there's a lot of people in this world that are like, you have to think about that. Like what? You have to think about putting things back where they go. You have to think about making sure that. all the cards don't fling out of the purse when you fling it into the back of the car. I mean, like there are a lot of people that don't have to think about that. I do. Speaker 1 (9:23) The reason I do is that I don't naturally think about that. So therefore, I lived a lot of my life card flinging, a lot of my life losing cards, a lot of my life losing things like my driver's license on a pretty regular basis. And so I am better off that I almost always do better now. than I would be if I said, oh, well, I don't always do better. So what is the point? Nine times out of 10, it's pretty good. If I look at anything that I want to do, I want to accomplish, I don't want to have happen the negative effects of something that I used to do. If I do better nine times out of 10, I'm so much better off. If I do better five times out of 10, I'm better off than if I just said, oh, well, I can't do this. And so I just don't do it. I'm better off if I do better one time out of 10. And this is that self-defeating thought process that so many of us who struggle in our homes have. Speaker 1 (10:46) It's this idea, and I've talked before about, you know, we have this goal of consistency, but a goal of consistency is not a great goal because I can't be consistent today. In order to be consistent ever, I have to do the thing today, but I'm not consistent yet. And then I have to do the thing again tomorrow and the thing again the next day, and then I'll be consistent, but I have no control over consistency today. Speaker 1 (11:14) And then what happens is we start to maybe be a little more consistent than we used to be. And we miss one day of doing the dishes, of doing laundry. Speaker 1 (11:26) And we think, oh, okay, well, that's over. I got to go watch a different YouTuber. I got to go read a different book. I've got to go come up with a whole new plan because the thing that I was doing four to six times out of 10 that was actually really helping. Now I've missed it. Or maybe I did it nine times and I didn't do it the 10th time. And now I've missed it. And I'm like, okay, well, then that doesn't work. No, no, no, no, no. I'm better off for having done it nine times, even if I missed the 10th time. So I had some other examples of that, of things that feel like, okay, it's better versus not enough. That's what I said the other title was going to be, right? Like shifting my mindset from not viewing it as not enough, but instead to say better. Like it's true that I didn't put my cards back in that pocket and zip it enough times. That is absolutely true. I did not. But if I look at it as not enough, then that makes me want to give up. But if I look at it and say, you know what? I have this, this stunk, this moment of panic and actual fear that I was not going to be able to fly home. And what is that going to mean? And now my goodness. And what if it's gone? And what if I dropped it at a gas station somewhere? Cause I didn't zip that pocket and it flung out somewhere. Like. Thinking of it as not enough is defeating. But when I go, okay, this stinks. I hate this feeling. Also, wow, I haven't felt this feeling in a while. I am actually doing so much better compared to what used to be my default. I'm actually doing pretty well because this feeling is unusual for me now to have this feeling of, oh my goodness, where's my driver's license? Okay. So a couple other things, one that I'm going to think, one that I want to say, because I forgot to put it in my notes. I teach laundry day. So like, that's one of my strategies that works really well for my brain that people really hate. until they try it, right? Like people have all the reasons in the world why laundry day won't work. I get it because I had all the reasons in the world why laundry day would never work. I wanted to be a one load a day person. That is what all the experts tell you that you should do. I tried it so many times. I failed again and again and again. But when I started doing laundry day and we'll link to different content where I have explained laundry day, it's also in my book, how to manage your home without losing your mind. But laundry day. was life-changing for me to do one day of focus and then not having to even think about it and having plenty of laundry, clean laundry for the next six days. Okay. But one of the things that I talk about. a lot is the change that happened when I started folding out of the dryer, like folding straight out of the dryer. I resisted folding straight out of the dryer for years. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. Laundry day is actually what works. I need to get loads switched over so I can do another load sooner. I don't need to wait the, what would it take, like 20 minutes for me to fold straight out of the dryer and put everything away? And then I tried it. And I went, oh my goodness, this changes everything. Because when I started folding straight out of the dryer, first of all, it didn't take 20 minutes. It took maybe seven, eight, nine minutes at the most, even to like fold it straight out of the dryer on top of the dryer or on the dryer door back when I had one that flipped down and take it and actually put it away. When I did that, I didn't have piles of laundry on my couch. Speaker 1 (15:16) when I didn't have piles of laundry on my couch. Like they just didn't exist because the clothes never went there. They never went to a pile. And when I did that, my whole house just looked a whole lot more put together all the time because there weren't piles of clean laundry on the couch or the dresser or the dining table or whatever. There just weren't piles of these. And so it really was life-changing to start doing that. But the point of today's podcast is that Speaker 1 (15:49) Better is better than not enough. Because when people will say, I don't know what it is. I'm doing all the things and my house just still feels so messy. A lot of times I'll ask them like, so are you folding straight out of the dryer? Are you putting clean laundry on the couch? Because it does make a difference. It does. But I am here to say I got laundry under control and it was worth it to get laundry under control. Even for the years when I had a clean laundry couch, loveseat, I got rid of my loveseat. And one of the thoughts that went through my head was, where are we going to put our clean laundry? Oh, we just started putting on the recliner. But that was