MVP means Most Valuable Player, right?
Well, yes. In most contexts of my life.
But recently, while listening to a podcast by Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, he and his guest casually referred to MVP in another way. In the entrepreneurial context, it means Minimum Viable Product.
Huh?
I was confused.
But I think I’ve figured it out, and I’ll explain what I’m pretty sure it means.
Minimum: The very least it can be.
Viable: It works. It can do the job it’s supposed to do.
Product: Thing. (Duh.)
In entrepreneurship, this means that it’s best to launch a product as soon as it is viable. As soon as it does the job, even if it isn’t the VERY best it will ever be. Even if all the bells and whistles you’ve dreamed up haven’t been added.
Launch it. Start earning money. Then use what you learn from seeing it in action with large amounts of people (and money from sales) to continue improving.
This is what successful entrepreneurs do.
They go for it.
It’s what sets them apart from dreamers.
You know, the ones who think up all kinds of great ideas but never actually act on any of them.
Dreaming is great, but it doesn’t earn any money.
Thinking up all the ways to do something perfectly is great, but it doesn’t mean anything is actually happening.
I thought a lot about the MVP concept as I worked in my closet last week.
It physically hurt to not do it perfectly. I would get soooo discouraged looking at the overflowing shelves above or the crooked hangers. In my ideal world, my closet would look like a magazine. Every single item would have a color-coordinated home and there would be no Boot Shoving Corners, only Boot Storage Systems.
But I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to be the dreamer.
I wanted to be the person who made something happen. Today. I wanted my MVP. My Minimum Viable Product.
I can build on it later, but I need progress (and livability) now.
It’s the same philosophy I’ve come to embrace over the past four years, just a new way to name it.
--Nony
So needed to hear this! Thanks for the encouragement.
This really registers with me, I too want perfection and what others deem as “normal” but this post helps me realize that I must do what works and eventually the “dream” will come to fruition.
Thank You.
This is great. I feel like my whole house is waiting to be exactly what I want it to be, while in fact, it’s moving in the opposite direction because I won’t move on with a minimally viable product. I need to accept that a MVP is good enough, and that waiting for perfection is actually taking a viable product and ruining it! I love this idea!
Exactly what Amanda said, every word of it! I realized after the holidays that it didn’t have to be perfect; I just needed to get moving with SOMETHING!
Amanda, when I read your post I realized that is exactly where I am with my house. I look and visualize – of course my visualization is everything perfect – but there is so much that has to be done even to get it to the point most people would even consider acceptable. But, like you, I am moving in the opposite direction by doing nothing because I can’t do everything and when I look around it has gotten so much worse that I feel even more demobilized! Hopefully the MVP realization will kick in and I can look at one area at a time instead of the whole house (or even a whole room)!!
My dad drilled into my head that if you weren’t going to do something RIGHT (aka, to perfect completion) don’t do it at all.
Did you know that people with clean houses do NOT clean it to perfection all in one day???
I KNOW! I was STUNNED to find that out too!!
I am pushing 48 years old and I still struggle to silence that voice that tells me that my house can only be PERFECTLY clean and organized or DO NOT BOTHER.
Being clean ENOUGH (minimally viable) and moving on to the next area and making that minimally viable will give us a viable product (clean enough house) so we can add the bells and whistles (organized closets, kitchen cabinets in order) as we go.
Ya know…. It worked for Steve Jobs. Look how far the iPhone is from that first iPod!
I grew up hearing the same thing. I have started to realize that housework is not my strong point, or even in the top 10. Now I’m shooting for functional. The bookshelf is messy and the TV is covered in three inches of dust. But the dishwasher is loaded and we don’t have any science experiments in the kitchen. And we might have two clean outfits so we’re good.
I heard that a time or thousand when I was growing up, too. Unfortunately, I adopted that philosophy as my own as my kids got old enough to start cleaning up their messes. I never actually said those words to them. Nope. Instead, I just cleaned up their messes for them. Big mistake… :/
I heard something similar – “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I added the corollary – If I’m not going to do it well, I’m not going to do it at all. That became the excuse for not doing ANYTHING for many years. Now, I’m facing the clutter collection that resulted. But now I’m going to get rid of it. I’ve adapted and adopted a new mantra from Nony and other sources. Actually I’m not sure where the original came from, but this is the version that makes the most sense to me: Progress is better than perfect. I have another version posted in various places in my home, but will replace it with this one soon – after I’ve washed the dishes! 🙂
This is exactly what I’ve needed to hear since I was about three years old. I had this same idea about entrepreneurship, but never thought about it in context of housekeeping. (I probably would have had better grades, too, because I didn’t turn in assignments that weren’t perfect.)
P.S. Birth order studies confirm that perfectionism is extremely common amongst first-born children… A revelation that has helped me understand myself a lot better and learn to relax a bit!
That is so true. It is so much better to have A system than no system while trying to obtain THE system. I cleaned out and organized the linen closet last night. I don’t know that I have It right yet, but stuff doesn’t fall out when you open the door anymore so that’s an improvement. And you can see what’s in there.
I read something (Flylady?) a number of years ago that has stuck with me. We learn as children that a job worth doing, is worth doing well. Some of us get hung up on that though and feel that we just can’t do it, if we can’t do it “well” enough. It went on to talk about, a job done poorly, still blesses your family. I have held on to that and have gotten many things done, reminding myself of that as I go.
Yep! Flylady says “housework done incorrectly still blesses your family!”
What about when it doesn’t? If it isn’t done perfectly, it doesn’t register with my family as “done” at all, and they just ignore what I’ve done and trash it. It’s pretty demoralizing and makes me want to just not bother trying.
How does one communicate this to the family so they will learn to appreciate what has been done rather that complaining about what hasn’t?
This is tough. This post definitely doesn’t speak to your exact situation, but maybe it will help: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2012/09/the-one-difference-between-this-and-all-the-other-times-ive-tried-to-come-clean/
This is helpful – thanks. And sitting here in the midst of a growing mess (I live alone and no one to blame but myself), and too sick to do anything about it, all I can do is look at it and imagine it looking better. Not “best” yet, but incrementally better, a little at a time. I have to tell you, there’s nothing like pneumonia (diagnosed last night) to make me feel like if I ever get better (and that will have to be my best in this case because I’m 62 years old and can’t afford to push myself and end up in the hospital), I really want to dig in and starting shoveling it out. Maybe even take down Christmas and pack it away, LOL! (I also have a large display case at church full of my nativity collection that needs to be packed up and put away – that’s pretty low on my list at the moment.) Back to bed now and rest…
So what was your MVP? What did you end up with in your closet? Just wondering and needing some practical solutions. 🙂 I am feeling the exact same way as most of the other comments have already laid out. Thanks! Sometimes we let perfect get in the way of good. God bless you!
Here’s the post about the closet: https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2014/01/adding-square-footage-to-my-bathroom-by-decluttering-and-the-2nd-decluttering-party-link-up/
Love this. Too many times an inability to do things the right way has kept things undone in my house. Thanks for the post!
Yes! Just like my organizing friend Aby Garvey says: done is better than perfect!
http://www.simplify101.com
That little phrase has gotten me through perfectionism paralysis many times. Yay!
I really like this thought. It gives an abbreviation to something that I have, very slowly and laboriously, learned to do over the years. Once upon a time, I spent 3-4 hours cleaning my oven. I don’t believe anyone ever looked at the inside of my oven and exclaimed over its perfection, but I’m quite sure they saw the piles of clutter that were in the corners of my home. I had alphabetized spices but my bathroom cabinet was a disaster.
I was fortunate to move to an area about 4-5 hours from our hometown which happened to be a tourist destination. Suddenly, our life was FULL of old friends who came to visit for the weekend, and I had to learn to be a hostess. That period in our lives was invaluable to me, because I was forced to get company-ready at least a couple times a month, many times more. I HAD to learn to just do the big things and leave the rest. The frequency of visits also kept our home from slipping back into the abyss between times. After the first few years, our guest numbers slowed down a lot, but by then I had forged some new patterns. It’s so true that Good Enough is actually good enough, and a once-over is better than not getting over it at all! Now I have to deal with the problem that my kids learned to surface-clean really fast, and hardly know how to deep clean anything! :/
Oh, I bet that was an incredible learning experience!
Thank you for getting me through all of this! My property owner is coming for an inspection on Tuesday and I couldn’t stay focused without all your words of wisdom!!! I’ve got my donation bag and trash bag and I’m making decisions fast! Struggling with the no pile thing though… eep!
I’ve been a lurker, Dana, but I have heard your voice in my head like that of a dear friend! “It physically hurt to not do it perfectly.” Oh, thank you for that! Then it’s just not me! I love the MVP concept for a million things in my life, and right now it’s going to get me off the computer and into my laundry room. Thank you for being so willing to put your life on the line with all these wonderful words!
Thank YOU so much for this comment. It encourages me so much!
Love the MVP acronym!! A phrase I adopted a few years ago after reading “The Happiness Project” resonates the same way: “Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good.” I frequently have to say that to myself when dealing with all things in my life, but especially with housework!!
I’ve been reading your blog for the last few weeks, starting at the beginning, it truly has been a blessing to me, you could be writing about me. This post made so much sense to me, I want everything to be perfect, and because I can’t make it perfect right now, I don’t do anything 🙁 I am going to start using the MVP thought process!
Thanks bunches!
always a great feeling when something gels. building the jigsaw picture.
The first born syndrome can occur with second born, but first born of opposite sex….ie female….me. Ha! First born was male. Second through fifth, female. I was first born of the girls….of total 5 children.
I so get your MVP. I do have that self talk frequently. Not perfect, but better than before. I can improve on it later. Ah, to do this every day.
Wow! I am in the middle of cleaning my storage room and converting an area for pantry purposes. I have been working on this for several days now and can’t get it to click for my “want it to be perfect the first time” mindset. I needed the MVP strategy to free up my mental block that has me stalled out. Thanks for the boost. I’m going in!!!
That’s me. The dreamer. I say of myself, “I’m a great idea man, but I stink at execution.”
Having discovered you and Dawn and Cas, I’m learning that I don’t have to stink at execution. My MVP is sometimes an MMMVP, but I’m making progress a little (sometimes a VERY little, but I’ve decided that’s okay) at a time.
From a first-born daughter, I just want to know how you got a picture of my closet?! Thank you so much for this-one of your best messages ever.
Pinterest has made us all dreamers, with the beautiful matching labeled containers. But I’ve learned that, not only do those containers cost a lot of money, but it is sooo wasteful to throw out old containers that don’t match or aren’t Pinterest-worthy. As I try to be more aware of the stuff I’m discarding, I’m trying to think, “Should the inside of my closet be pretty, or should I use what I have, and keep old containers out of the landfill?”
I had to be reminded of this exact thing last week! I was telling my therapist how overwhelmed I am that my house is a mess, and she said to focus on progress rather than perfection. So put away my suitcase that has been out since October, enjoy that success, and do something else later. It’s such a simple concept, but it felt revolutionary to have someone else tell me that. And now this article says the same thing! I’m feeling very encouraged. :]
Well, I like the MVP idea in terms of decluttering but I now understand why when I buy certain gadget products I end up asking myself, “did anyone actually test this thing out?” I’m left dumbfounded as to why said gadget has a big design flaw/s. The MVP concept is kind of annoying from a consumers point of view. Makes me feel like a Guinea pig! Guess I’ll be double checking return policies before adding more clutter to my house! lol! Thanks for sharing this.
I thought I had read everything you have written. I’ve been practicing the five steps for about four years now. My house is improving and I’m making decisions much quicker. But this is a new concept that I can see will be very useful to me.
Thank you Dana for always being so encouraging.