This morning I woke up before daylight feeling completely awake, which made no sense because if it’s still dark outside, I obviously need more sleep.

I refused to check the time because once I know it’s 3:17 or 4:03 or whatever ridiculous hour it is, my brain immediately starts doing math about how much sleep I’m not getting.

Eventually curiosity won.

It was 4:30.

Well…my phone was already in my hand.

First I checked the Portugal trip. Registration had officially closed at midnight, and we’ll have 11 wonderful people joining us this fall! Several of them are Goats 365 members, so it already feels like I’ll be traveling with friends. 💖

Then I checked the Kickstarter.

Another pledge had come in overnight.

We were so close to the goal that I thought, “Not bad. Now I can stop thinking about it and go back to sleep.”

Apparently my brain had other plans, and I started thinking about the current heat wave and keeping all of the animals safe and whether I should try to cook a roast or maybe a pot of beans in a car that's sitting in the sun.

An hour later, I checked email.

The first thing I saw was the email I’d written before bed and scheduled to go out at 6:00 this morning.

(Yes, I subscribe to my own email list. Yes, I know I can preview emails before I send them. Apparently my perfectionist brain insists on reviewing them again after they arrive.)

I started reading.

Then I saw it.

One sentence said the Kickstarter deadline was tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Not today.

The countdown timer is right.

​The Kickstarter page is right.

My brain, however, had apparently decided yesterday that today was tomorrow. When you're writing about tomorrow today, then when people read it tomorrow, it's going to be today.

At that point I gave up on the idea of sleeping and got out of bed.

Still half asleep, I wandered into my dark closet because I was chilly, grabbed a sweater, and pulled it off the hanger…

…or so I thought.

When I tried to put my arm through the sleeve, it hit something hard.

I hadn’t taken the sweater off the hanger.

Half the hanger was still stuffed inside the sleeve.

That pretty much summed up my morning.

There’s a saying in Silicon Valley: “Move fast and break things.”

My inner perfectionist says, "Move slowly and proofread it one more time." Then subscribe to my own email list so I can proofread it again after it’s delivered.

But if I wait until everything is absolutely perfect, I’d never hit “Send.” We’d never plan a trip to Portugal. We’d never launch a Kickstarter. I’d probably still be standing in my closet trying to figure out why my sweater had become so strangely rigid.

So yes, I occasionally send an email with “tomorrow” when I meant “today.”

Sometimes I try to wear a clothes hanger.

Sometimes I remind myself that done really is better than perfect.

Thank you for sticking with me through the successes, the mistakes, and the occasional wardrobe malfunction.

Here’s to fewer surprises,

Deborah