increments
I was mowing my lawn yesterday and I couldn’t help but notice how great my yard is doing this year. It’s thriving.
Sure, there are still a few patchy places in the grass where the dog focuses her efforts. And sure, a couple of the trees could use some pruning, and sure, I’ll have a dozen new dandelions to pull later today… but for the most part, it’s a banner year for our little suburban garden lot.
And the difference, I instantly realized, is incrementalism.
Usually, when I’m a lot busier of a guy, I reserve yard work for the weekends or my rare days off. I try to get as much done as I can on a Saturday afternoon. Then inevitably, I tire myself out, miss a few things, or just opt to sit in a lawn chair and admire any marginal progress I’ve made.
But this year, with a few more spare hours on my hands and between writing stints or while literally waiting for the watercolour paint to dry, I’ve been poking at it. Incrementally.
Thirty minutes here pulling weeds. Fifteen over there trimming the shrubs. Another bit of time to rake or prune or edge or any of a hundred little tasks.
And it has all added up. The yard, as I wrote above, is having a banner year even though it seems like I’ve put considerably less effort into it. Fewer long days of hard work, but lots of little blocks of effort, all of it adding up to real, visible progress.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain the analogy here.