Removing ice from a driveway is like …. everything

Tom Johnson — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:23:10 +0000

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.

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Wrapping up 2008 – Successes, Failures, and Goals for the Next Year

Tom Johnson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:42:03 +0000

As 2008 ended, I neglected to write a year-end wrap-up post because it seemed so trendy and cliché at the time, but now that 2009 has started, my muse has been prodding me to write it.

A lot of good things happened in 2008. We bought a house in Eagle Mountain, moving from an apartment to a two-story home that fits our little family of five perfectly. Jane started blogging more frequently, writing witty, engaging posts about so many things. Her readership shot up at least 300%. I started advertising in my sidebar, after much encouragement from Jane. I also began providing more WordPress consulting (in my spare time) rather than training, because it’s easier and more profitable.

I launched and redesigned writerriver.com, a community site that now has about 175 members. I also started a readscripturestogether.com site, which allows me to stay motivated spiritually. My proposals to the STC Summit about quick reference guides and product blogging were accepted, and I’m pushing further into these areas at work. On the basketball court, I once again found my shot.

As for our children, Sally (7) read nearly all of the Harry Potter books and has transformed into a bookworm, a perfect model of her mother. She’s quickly maturing into a young woman. Susan (4) continues to be the assertive middle child. We found out Spot (2) has Duane’s syndrome, which means one of her eyes doesn’t turn all the way to the left (but you hardly notice it). Spot exploded with speech this year, being more precocious with language than the previous two children.

Spot and me (her eye only looks a little cross-eyed when she looks left without turning her head, such as in this picture)

As for the year’s downsides, we ordered a subscription to DirectTV, and have all been spending far too much time watching the television. Jane and I had a few senseless arguments that I still regret. The snow in Utah turned out to be a lot less fun than the sandy beaches in Florida. We had to pay two months’ rent to break our apartment lease and move into our house. In our new location, I now carpool to work an unthinkably early hour in the morning, which often leaves me tired when I come home. We still struggle to find best friends in our new neighborhood. And we both fell prey to Twitter and the “release-high” that 140 characters shot across the Internet provides.

What’s next for 2009? Like most people, I have a few goals. Although my goals are essentially the same sort of goals that others make, I try to spin them with a unique angle to encourage surprising results.

Goal #1: Clean when Jane cleans. Being a good husband means sharing in household duties. By also cleaning when Jane is cleaning, I’ll ease the tension that arises when I remain stationary. Of course this is something I should have been doing all along, but alas, I am male. In co-cleaning, I’ll also gain more empathy for her hard work, and maybe stop leaving my socks lying around.

Goal #2: Post daily. Writing daily on my blog keeps my mind invigorated. It helps me stay engaged and improves my writing. It also makes me feel like I’m moving forward. I’ve found that posting daily (or, more realistically, posting multiple times a week) is easier than posting just once a week. The muse speaks loudest when I exercise it regularly. And so much good has come from my blog.

Goal #3: Run on my treadmill 3 times a week. We borrowed my sister-in-law’s treadmill and put it right near our TV in the living room. When I’m lying down on the couch, watching football, or Life, or some other show, it’s hard not to look over and feel a natural desire to run on the treadmill a bit. I doubt I’ll give up TV, and rather than feel as if I’m wasting my life watching some overly dramatic cop, doctor, or terrorist show, I can offset the guilt with the good feelings of exercise.

Goal #4: Comment daily on my readscripturestogether.com site. This is my spiritual goal. I’ve found that commenting on chapters posted on readscripturestogether.com site keeps me spiritually awake and enthusiastic in this arena. Who would have guessed that writing itself is the key to overcoming the spiritual yawn?

Goal #5: Dual-task and take hourly breaks to read a little from Safari. This goal is in the high experimentation phase. My goal is to increase my efficiency while also increasing my knowledge and awareness. I basically pick two main tasks I want to accomplish, and switch working on them every hour. As I switch, I take a quick break to read a few pages from a book in the Online Safari Library, which I have free access to. The library has a tremendously good selection of tech-related content. Because I keep switching between the two tasks, I maintain my attention level high. And when reading tech books becomes a treat, it makes the experience sweet.

That’s it. A modest set of goals, and not outside the traditional social-intellectual-spiritual-physical categories that underlie so many others’ goals. But hopefully I’ve given them a unique enough slant that some unexpected and beneficial consequences may result.

I'd Rather Be Writing » snow

Removing ice from a driveway is like …. everything

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Wrapping up 2008 – Successes, Failures, and Goals for the Next Year

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