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FacebookRemoving ice from a driveway is like …. everything
December 19th, 2009 | Posted in Creativity 10 Comments »
Not having grown up in Utah, when it snows, my first instinct isn’t to start shoveling my driveway. So when it snowed last week, I let the snow pile up in the driveway and assumed it would eventually melt. But it didn’t melt. Several days later, it still didn’t melt. And then it snowed again.
In the course of a week, we had driven over the driveway snow more than 30 times with two cars, impacting it down. The ice hardened with a strong crust. When I drove my car into the driveway, the ice scraped the bottom of my car.
Last night I decided to finally shovel the glacier off. After 20 minutes of hard shoveling and chipping and digging, I came in exhausted and lay down on the couch. I had only finished about a third of the driveway — the easy part near the garage door.
After resting about a half hour, I returned and chipped away some more. I swung and chopped and pried and lifted and chipped in almost every direction with all my strength. I piled up the big chunks of ice on the side of the driveway.
Chipping away at a glacier covering my driveway
After this second round, I came inside and lay down on my couch again, just as exhausted, this time as thirsty as a buffalo. I gulped down two glasses of ice water and flipped on the TV. I was about to give up on the driveway, as comfortable as the couch was, but after resting 20 minutes I felt the urge to get up and start chipping away yet again at the glacier.
Little by little, I pried up big chunks of ice. I could hardly believe I was actually making progress, but the ice was loosening and revealing the gray cement below. I hit my second wind and gathered more energy with each loosened piece of ice. Digging in the shovel, I pried up large sheets of ice and flung them to the side. One big chunk, and then another, and another. Before I knew it, I finished.
Done (good enough anyway)
So much of my life is like this. Had I shoveled at the first sign of snow, I could have easily removed the snow in twenty minutes rather than nearly two hours. But more than a lesson in procrastination, seemingly impossible tasks and projects can be tackled piece by piece, if you just keep chipping away at them. When you get tired, rest a bit until you’re ready to return to it. Then keep chipping, and to your surprise, big chunks will start to loosen and separate. You carry them away and use your new-found leverage to chip away at more and more.
Drink water, rest beside your shovel, carry the larger snow chunks to your kid building a fort in the snow. But keep shoveling and shoveling. Before you know it, you’ll be done.
I know this isn’t a brilliant insight or even that interesting, but it’s a little microcosm of my life, especially with IT projects, which can seem so complicated and multifaceted at the start, but little by little they unravel and start to make sense.
Tags: effort, Life, procrastination, projects, snow
Oh, the joys of living with snow.
Or you could just do what I did: move somewhere where it doesn’t snow as often.
Of course, snow or no snow, the truths that you’ve discovered will still apply.
Amateur!
-j (writing from Sweden)
While the lesson you cite (persistence) is important, another lesson, timing, is equally important.
If you start too early, you need to repeat too often. If you start late (as you’ve seen), you end up shoveling deep, heavy, slushy, or frozen snow. BTW, I go for about 3-5 inches, though in Colorado where I live, the snow is often light enough that you can wait a bit longer.
The closest business analog I can think of is tracking receipts for business. You can handle each one as it comes in, handle them is small batches, or wait until the end of the year and handle them as one honking big mess.
Doing them one at a time as they come in is not bad, but you end up interrupting work, firing up an accounting program, etc., just for one receipt. Doing them on a weekly or even monthly basis is more efficient (depending on the size of your business), but waiting out the year is going to leave you chipping ice on April 14th:).
Another Good one Tom esp the insight you corelated is very nice.
Another important point is never forget the lessons learned in the past. hope you’ll remember this post for the next winter.
Buy salt
That’s why I live in Atlanta….
I’m not sure exacty how it relates to your analogy, but a doctor friend of mine once said that a high percentage of heart attacks during the winter (where I live in Canada) are caused by out-of-shape middle-agers (like me) tackling a big dump of snow on their driveways. I admit, I’ve used that as an excuse at times to avoid shoveling. It probably also relates to the number of us Canadians who become “snowbirds” to Phoenix and Florida as we approach retirement…
Oh my goodness. I’m suddenly very glad I live in Texas. Come summertime, I’m sure that will change, of course.
@Howard,
The first time I went to Atlanta, I got stuck for an extra day by a snow storm that would have been a non-event in Chicago or Minneapolis. It was lots of fun watching cars driven by folks who’d never driven in snow sliding all over the place.
So, based on odds, you’re right, just stay indoors when there is any snow:-).