I’m the turtle, my wife is the hare.
Spoiler alert: sometimes the hare wins.
You see, the story of the turtle and the hare is great at emphasizing the importance of consistent, steady progress.
It’s the way I like to work. Set up some simple habits, preferably daily, and then make sure to do them. My habits are all easy to do, and don’t take long. If I get through them all for the day, I feel great, even if I get little else done. And if I don’t get through them, it doesn’t matter much if I completed a big landscaping or work project, I still feel like I failed.
It’s not the way my wife likes to work. She’s a hare. She wants to tackle a big project, and stay at it until it’s done, letting other things slip and go undone. She feels great if she ends the day exhausted from doing the one thing she set her mind to. But if she does three or four simple things, her day feels like a waste, even if doing those things consistently over a few months would make a huge difference.
For some things, the turtle’s way of racing is great.
It can be amazing to see how much progress is made after months of slow, steady progress.
But for others, you really need a hare.
Sure, if the race is over level ground, with few obstacles, the turtle can just keep cranking away. And the hare will get bored, take a break, and wonder where the time went.
But when the course has challenges, there are some things that only a hare can tackle. A large log in the way would force a turtle to slowly makes it way around. Meanwhile, the hare easily jumps over it.
Some projects need a large effort in a short time to get started, or restarted, or finished. No amount of slow and steady progress will get the job done.
For example, we have a concrete patio that we had installed a couple years ago. It’s beautiful, but it’s clear that it has faded in the sun and needs to be resealed. My approach, if I could make it work, would be to slowly apply sealant, spending 20 or 30 minutes a day until the whole job was done.
But that’s impossible.
First, you need to clear the whole patio of furniture, pots and the grill. Then, you need to pressure wash it all. Then, as soon as it’s dry, the sealant needs to go on quickly, before it gets dirty again. Besides, we don’t want to be without patio furniture for weeks while it gets resealed. And there would certainly be differences in coloration if the sealant went on over a long time.
Some things have to be done by a hare.
Or a very agile turtle.
I hashed out these ideas in a conversation with my wife about yard work (go figure) and planning.
She gets these emails, but doesn’t read them and doesn’t plan her days like I do.
And that’s fine.
But for me, daily planning is a chance for me to look at how I get work done and improve it.
So, I can use it to find ways to “jump the log” on projects that just cannot be done by a turtle.
And she can use it to start to build habits that will pay off in the long run, like making a small amount of time each week to weed our plant beds.
If she’ll ever start reading these emails…
Until next time!