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Some items really are waiting for a better month. Others are quietly settled and only the guilt is still going round. You are allowed to say that the dining room is not getting painted, or not by you, or not this year. What comes back is the attention you were spending on feeling bad, and a list that tells the truth about your life.
I only want to put things right as far as I can (Quran 11:88). A modest statement of intent, with a limit inside it and no apology made for the limit.
هود
قَالَ يَٰقَوۡمِ أَرَءَيۡتُمۡ إِن كُنتُ عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةࣲ مِّن رَّبِّي وَرَزَقَنِي مِنۡهُ رِزۡقًا حَسَنࣰ اۚ وَمَآ أُرِيدُ أَنۡ أُخَالِفَكُمۡ إِلَىٰ مَآ أَنۡهَىٰكُمۡ عَنۡهُۚ إِنۡ أُرِيدُ إِلَّا ٱلۡإِصۡلَٰحَ مَا ٱسۡتَطَعۡتُۚ وَمَا تَوۡفِيقِيٓ إِلَّا بِٱللَّهِۚ عَلَيۡهِ تَوَكَّلۡتُ وَإِلَيۡهِ أُنِيبُ
He answered, ‘My people, can you not see? What if I am acting on clear evidence from my Lord? He Himself has given me good provision: I do not want to do what I am forbidding you to do, I only want to put things right as far as I can. I cannot succeed without God’s help: I trust in Him, and always turn to Him
Qur’an 11:88read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of perfectionism separated high standards from anxious concern about falling short, and found it is the anxious concern rather than the standards that tracks with psychological difficulty. Closing a permanently open item is aimed at that concern. The evidence is about perfectionism broadly, not about abandoning tasks in particular.
Limburg K, Watson HJ, Hagger MS, Egan SJ. (2017). The Relationship Between Perfectionism and Psychopathology: A Meta-Analysis.. Journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A decision you have made but never admitted keeps costing you as though it were still open.
If a task gives you nothing, bring something to it. Ring the cousin you never speak to and paint while you talk. Do the filing beside a friend who has their own filing to do.
Sometimes both roads carry a cost and neither will feel good. Accept that first, then choose, rather than searching for the option that comes without a sting.
If someone close to you has become the person who chases you, that arrangement is wearing you both down, even on the days it works. It is worth naming out loud and changing on purpose.