Prioritizing for Maniacs: Tool #1

In a recent post, I discussed being busy for things rather than against things. It takes discipline and vision to achieve that; I find it also takes building better habits and troubleshooting problems almost continuously to keep a forward momentum in the face of never-ending duty and distraction. Learning to pay attention to what is and isn't working for me has been a turning point in my happiness and effectiveness in my life in recent years. Becoming more comfortable deciding that something isn't for me, maybe just for now, has freed me to focus my efforts where they will pay off.

As I wrote this series, I realized that while each tool has been helpful to me, the real benefit was the change in thinking that allowed me to find and use each tool. I had read many articles and books on productivity, noticed excellent habits and ideas amongst my friends and family, and read blog posts that shifted my thinking unexpectedly. However, I can see now that most good ideas slid right off me until I was ready to hear them. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

So, more than just a list of practical tools for a better ordered life, this series will examine some of the underlying false beliefs that held me back for so long, and the shift in philosophy that set me free. I'd love to hear from readers about their own paradigm shifts, about moments when they set aside a disordered belief and chose to believe something more helpful.

Without further ado, the first tool: Know Your Specs

In manufacturing, it is important to know just how good is good enough. In some cases, parts must be made to extremely stringent specifications (specs), such as the pieces that make up a performance automotive engine. But in many cases, a component can be allowed to have a wide range of variation and still do the job really well. To engineers, these are known as "tight" and "loose" tolerances. A manufacturer who regularly intentionally produces parts to tighter-than-required tolerances is going to struggle to stay in business because repeatedly producing precision components takes more time and costs more. Often engineers have intentionally designed for looser tolerances to reduce the time and cost of production, so this added effort and cost is unwanted and will go unappreciated. We all have limits on our time and energy, so we need to be careful to invest them where they are going to make the greatest impact. Perhaps you might loosen your tolerances.

Growing up, I had always been told to "do my best," advice not designed for overachievers. I started to realize that a good deal of the wisdom I needed had to do with figuring out what the real bare minimum was in all areas of my life. I had created such inflated specs for my own performance that it was difficult to use my other tools. How does one forgo perfectionism if one does not know the difference between good enough and above-and-beyond? How does one figure out how much time something really takes if one does not know how well it has to be done? For example, it might take me an hour to go through my closet and drawers in such a way that I am served well enough: I have gotten rid of everything that is not useful to me, re-organized things so I could find them easily, and cleaned out any dust bunnies. It might take me a whole week to do this task if I decide that I need to perfectly tackle every task related to my wardrobe.

On the other hand, maybe stopgap measures for dealing with homeschool supplies are no longer sufficing. Maybe I realize it is taking increasingly more time to find things, I am no longer certain of what we have, and I'm aggravated anytime someone even mentions needing something from that category. The biggest tell that it is time to go Marie Kondo on a task is when I find myself checking more than two places for things, because that category has diffused into so many drawers, cabinets, and even rooms of the house.

In that case, I will clear off the kitchen table and pull out my 6' folding table. I have my husband bring up the totes of art and science supplies from the basement while I bring more of the same out of the laundry room closet and cabinets, the hutch in the kitchen, and any other caches. I ask the children to unhand the supplies they have squirreled away in their own rooms. I then start sorting items into categories and simplify to suit my children's current needs, often reducing by half between what I give away to families with younger children and what I realize is used up and can be tossed. I often realize the reason we can’t find a given supply is because unbeknownst to me, we finally used up all 60 pieces I bought on sale five years ago. Because this ultimately takes me less time than I was spending each month trying to find supplies, and removes what had become a regular source of irritation, it is a good use of my time to go all in on this task.

So, I try to know my specs. What is the bare minimum standard for a given area of my life? How much do I have to do to solve the real problem? Turns out, sometimes we need to loosen our specs because perfect gets in the way of the good, while sometimes we need to tighten our specs, because our current system means we are losing hours looking for things or throwing out way too much food due to lack of meal prep.

Read the whole series:

1. Know your specs (January 15, 2026)
2. Slay the perfectionism dragon (January 22, 2026)
3. Eisenhower matrix (January 29, 2026)
4. Scheduling maintenance (February 5, 2026)
5. The Ignatian Method (February 12, 2026)
6. Believe that you too only have 24 hours in a day (February 19, 2026)
7. Big Picture Questions (February 26, 2026)