Richard Felt: By Monday

Just a few thoughts as I’m heading into a DIY-heavy weekend:

It’s almost hard to believe that there was a time in my life where I didn’t regularly have dirt under my fingernails or at least four bruises healing somewhere on my thighs or shins. But, apparently, that’s what I signed up for when I made the decision to buy my house.

And ok, that’s also what I sign up for when I don’t clear lumber out of my way when stepping over something in the garage (I’m pretty sure most of my bruises are karma’s way of punishing me for my laziness).

But not long after closing, my weekends went from the relaxing break between workdays to lots of hard, frustrating labor. And you know what? That’s not a complaint. Even when things get hard, my life would be unrecognizable without that decision. After more than five years of doing the DIY thing, I still get just as excited when I start thinking about what will be different by Monday.

By this time Monday, my garden beds will be finished. (spoiler alert: I just crossed this off the list about 10 mins ago!)

By Sunday, the garage will be much more organized, and I’ll finally have the beginnings of a real workshop.

By this time next week, the laundry room counter will be in.

I’ve used this trick over and over again to motivate myself to get through something difficult. During finals in school, it was particularly effective at getting me through the mental drain of sleeplessness and cramming for exams. But now that most of my frustrations are self-inflicted from adding more projects to the to-do list, it also helps give me perspective to focus on the big picture. Whenever a project turns me into a snarling, regretful mess, I remind myself that by ___, it will be a thing of the past. And it makes things easier.

Believe it or not, whether I really do completely finish the task by Monday (or whatever date in the future) is not really the point either. It’s my best intentions to hold myself to the goal I’ve set, but failing to meet it falls into the same category as why I picked the point in the future in the first place: it’s a reminder to not sweat the obstacles. It will get done. It will get done soon. And whatever progress I make is still more than I would have if I had just sat around watching Netflix.

You’ll be able to catch some sneak peeks of my weekend progress on Instagram, but here are just a few that will be shared on the blog as soon as next week!

weekend