The Law of Diminishing Returns

There's a particular kind of humbling that comes not from failure, but from doing something too well in all the wrong ways. And work that you've only done for your own home...

My second job through Mable.

A 28-year-old woman, married, quietly getting on with things despite a set of challenges that would have most people renegotiating.

She needed help with her home. Bathroom. Floors. Bedroom. Blinds. The windows. The kind of work that is never glamorous and never pretends to be.

I showed up. Detailed brief. Then, straight to work.

I scrubbed surfaces three times... those that needed it once!

That's the thing about perfectionism... it disguises itself as diligence right up until the moment it becomes its own kind of incompetence. I was nervous. First real domestic job. Nobody watching, which should have been freeing, but instead activated something in me to prove something. To win the client's admiration. Repeat jobs.

There's a version of this story where the meditative quality of the work... the rhythm of mop on floor, of cloth on glass... becomes something noble.

And honestly?

There was something to it. No reporting structure. No one to perform for (I didn't realise it until later!). Just the work and the quiet and the next thing that needed doing. I've sat in enough offices to know that's rarer than it sounds.

But I messed up my time management! Got the bathroom, the bedroom... didn't make it to the kitchen or the living room. Law of diminishing returns. A phrase I know well enough to teach and, apparently, not well enough to live by.

She gave me feedback. Just one thing, she said: time management. She was also gracious about it, which somehow made it land harder.

Then she asked me to submit my hours and that she'll see me next week!

On the way out, I asked her, "What made you choose my profile over everyone else's?"

Let me think. Your message was persona. It made me giggle.

You spend years learning to write. Polishing the craft, calibrating voice, trying to say something true in a way that doesn't feel like everyone else's version of true. Turns out these "skills" are not just for the corporate space... It made someone feel.

I'll take it.

Two jobs next week. Monday. Tuesday. The calendar is filling up. I just might make this work...