Falling behind
THE RUB
Sunday’s forecast called for light snow. I saw an opportunity to act before the flakes started flying and finally get a step ahead on my lawn care. I could apply a bag of crab-grass pre-emergent and fertilizer on the lawn and let the snow work its magic.
I loaded my spreader and started walking my rows. Back and forth, back and forth. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Proactive. Ahead of the curve. The kind of homeowner who handles things before they become things.
Then I turned the corner to the east side of my house.
Thick, dark ivy climbing the siding and spreading across the ground, established in a way that doesn’t happen overnight. This had been consistently growing. Apparently it had been some time since I walked on this side of the house.
Two thoughts flooded my mind in rapid succession. I’m so smart and so good at this preventative maintenance game. Which was immediately chased away by I’m horrible at this.
Both were true.
THE FRAMEWORK
In 2003, Dave Brailsford took over the British Cycling team. His approach was simple: break down every element of performance and improve each one by just 1%. Nutrition, training, equipment, pillow ergonomics, hand-washing technique, and even the color of paint inside the team truck. None of it was transformative on its own, but it all added up.
By 2008, they were dominating the Olympics. By 2013, a British rider won the Tour de France for the first time. Small improvements compounding into remarkable results.
But the ivy taught me that compounding works in both directions. Every vine I didn’t pull last spring was a negative 1%. Every time I rounded the corner and went back inside without looking was another. The ivy didn’t take over the side of my house in one dramatic moment. It advanced quietly and incrementally. What could have been a five-minute weekly task became a full weekend project just to get back to zero.
This was compound neglect. It happens in relationships, finances, health, and work. The math is invisible until suddenly it isn’t, and you’re standing there with a spreader, staring at a wall of ivy.
THE PRACTICE
Worrying about unaddressed vines can get overwhelming fast. I have too much going on to address it all. Instead of a comprehensive audit, I’m planning to walk the perimeter.
Name your four sides. Pick four areas of your life where vines tend to grow. Just four, not fourteen. I’ve been maintaining movement, nutrition, and writing; but home maintenance has been neglected. It’s also time to increase movement.
Schedule time to look. For each area, build in a regular moment of honest reflection. Daily journaling does this for me. The practice surfaces what needs attention before it becomes urgent.
Pull one vine. Not all of them. My weekends are packed for the rest of the month, but the weather is warming up, and the days are staying lighter longer. The next two nights I’ll spend twenty minutes pulling vines as soon as I get home from work.
The goal is daily progress, not big projects to clear the whole east side in a weekend. Establish the habit of looking, so that next time I have one vine to pull instead of a wall of them.
The fertilizer is in, the snow did its work, and I know exactly where to look next.