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October 10, 2006
80/20
It seems that I and everyone else at one point read/heard/intuited that there are some things you should do 80%. Like you're very good 80% of the time, and you don't try so hard 20%. I think that was some kind of diet advice, to help people who get discouraged when they fall off their plan accept slippage as part of the plan, not a derailing disaster. I'd say I'm about like that with my CR: I'm hardcore 80% of the time, and 20% I'm not. That makes me a moderate CR practitioner. When I'm doing very well, it's more like 90/10, and eventually I'd like to get to 95/5, but I don't think I'd ever want to go 100% hardcore, everything counted every day, like MR. I'd miss my Philly restaurants and wine bars too much to give them up forever. So a balance, where I'm very strict most days and then can allow for some flexibility on other days, works pretty well for me.
I thought about the 80/20 balance today when, of all things, I was vacuuming the stairs. You see, we have carpet in our new house, and while I had tried out my fancy new vacuum that MR bought me, a giant purple monster named "Animal" that is designed to rid the atmosphere of animal allergens, on the regular carpets, I hadn't yet hit the stairs. We've had contractors clomping up and down the stairs most days up until yesterday afternoon, so there didn't seem to be much point in vacuuming the stairs when the workmen would be right back to trash them the next day. The fact is, the whole carpet needs a steam clean after all the construction, but that's beside the point for now. I enlisted MR's help in doing the stairs because I needed someone to carry Animal's body along behind me while I vacuumed with Animal's turbo mini fur removing attachment head. Then we got to the top and I switched to the crevice wand to clean out all those pesky between the steps spaces that are impossible to reach with a regular vacuum attachment.
Immediately, I became infatuated with the wand. It is so powerful, so exact, so sharp. The magic wand of suction slurpped up cat fur and contractor boot dirt, and I kept going over the spaces again and again until they were really, really clean.
MR, holding the vacuum body behind me, was not so infatuated with the crevice wand. "Perhaps we could apply the 80/20 rule to vacuuming the stairs?" he asked.
I turned around with a demonic gleam in my eye, I'm sure. "Aha! So the perfectionist is not such a perfectionist!"
"Not when it comes to vacuuming the stairs!" he said.
You see, MR doesn't find vacuuming the stairs to be the deep, fulfilling, joyful experience that I find it to be. Even though he appreciates the results: pretty stairs, fewer animal allergens in the air, he doesn't want to spend all day holding the vacuum cleaner.
It's all about priorities. In some things, it's worth going all the way to 100%. In others, just 80% perfect will do quite well. We all have to make decisions about what matters to us most in life.
But I really, really love my new vacuum, and it's so satisfying to have clean stairs.
Posted by april at October 10, 2006 8:05 AM
Comments
may I barrow that vacuum cleaner? My apartment needs a good kick on the butt.
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at October 11, 2006 4:19 PM