On Saturday morning I woke up and found myself in a productive mood. I thought “Today is a great day to get stuff done”. With my wife and Daughter at work and the rest of the guys planning their days, I decided to do some jobs I’d been putting off.
Cleaning the car, inside and out, was first on the list. I searched for the bucket, sponge and cleaning materials, but, because the shed was in such a mess I couldn’t find anything. The bucket had a leak and the sponge had been chewed by the dog, so, not useable anymore.
Time to go to Halfords and replenish my stock, then back to the task in hand. I fought to get the hose from the back garden through the shed but finally everything was in place and I got busy. Task 1 completed!
Time for a coffee and a rest, so I watched AFCB vs Spurs – great game!
Task 2 had now become cleaning the shed. I don’t know how you would describe your shed but mine was not doing what it had been designed to do. I couldn’t walk through the back to the front without having to move bikes, tool boxes, old punch bags and even a carpet cleaner. The door was not secure anymore and could just be pulled open without unlocking it. (Not good as that’s where my bikes are kept!) So task 2 was ‘growing legs’ and the lock had now become a priority. Once I found my tools, some screws and worked out how to fix the lock, the first hour had passed, but it felt good to have fixed it.
I then took everything out of the shed so I could sweep the floor and start again. The freezer, tumble dryer and bikes needed to go back in, some stuff needed to go to the tip and other things needed to be stored somewhere else. I struggled with organising the space and moved things in and out until I was finally content – it looked great!
The time had flown and it was now 5:40pm – Liverpool vs West Brom was a great reward along with a couple of beers.
At the end of the day I felt like I had achieved loads and felt great. I even went into the shed first thing on Sunday morning to admire my work! How sad is that?
It’s amazing that, just by waking up and thinking “I’m going to be productive” – I got loads done and felt great about it. How often does that happen? I can always find loads of things to do, rather than the things that need to be done!
I suppose the trick is to get the balance with work and rest. The two football matches in between helped my motivation, gave me deadlines to work to and offered me a reward.
Often we just do the work and never seem to get things completed, moving from task to task and getting priorities changed. It can feel relentless at times.
Getting a balance is the key to success in most things.
How balanced is your life and what areas could do with some attention?