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I use a mains electric mower to mow our lawn. An easy enough job with the extension lead but because of the trees I find it best to cut the lawn in two
halves. Mowing the lawn in two halves reduces the risk of mowing the cable into two halves.
When I've finished half the lawn I need to shift the extension lead to the half I’ve already cut. Easy enough if I don’t get tangled in all those yards of electric cable. However a few years ago I changed tactics. Instead of trying to shove the extension lead to one side when switching halves, I took the time to make the job neater and easier.
When I've finished half the lawn I need to shift the extension lead to the half I’ve already cut. Easy enough if I don’t get tangled in all those yards of electric cable. However a few years ago I changed tactics. Instead of trying to shove the extension lead to one side when switching halves, I took the time to make the job neater and easier.
Unplug the mower from the extension lead.
Rewind the extension lead.
Re-route the extension lead to the mown half of the lawn.
Plug the mower into the extension lead and off we go.
Previously I couldn’t be bothered with all that, but out of
interest I timed how long to took me to re-route that extension lead. Less than
a minute and it made the job easier. Not a major improvement but
well worth that extra minute.
I put it down to habits picked up during my working life.
Push on, finish the job and move on to the next. Small improvements can be lost
amid the pressure to get things done, but that’s not quite it. There is another factor at work too.
In many circumstances, a perceived lack of haste can come across as plodding because that's how plodders go about their plodding. Increasing the number of steps in a job for whatever reason, can seem like plodding too. Moving on swiftly without an obvious pause seems keen, dynamic and on the ball even when it isn’t. Now it doesn't matter.
In many circumstances, a perceived lack of haste can come across as plodding because that's how plodders go about their plodding. Increasing the number of steps in a job for whatever reason, can seem like plodding too. Moving on swiftly without an obvious pause seems keen, dynamic and on the ball even when it isn’t. Now it doesn't matter.
6 comments:
As well as making the job easier, there is also the point that there is a subtle but real satisfaction in being able to work at one's own pace and make one's own improvements. A tiny demonstration that one is in charge of one's own destiny. Recently I worked out that the brown paper bags we get from the greengrocer fit perfectly into the kitchen compost bucket, and save me the bother of washing it out for the next load. I don't know why that makes me a bit happier, but it definitely does.
Do the first half. Sit back and admire for at least half an hour. Wonder why cordless stuff is still ever so slightly crap. Muse in a semi -related way about solar farms, anomalous subsidies, offshore wind turbines, inconsiderate blight on landscape and the toll of sacrificed and unregarded inconvenient wildlife. Remind self, having distractedly, whilst musing, just run over and chewed up cable and still being alive, thanks to magnificently efficient circuit breakers, that not all modern inventions and sophistications are in fact actually rubbish. Think about the pros and cons of goats. Decide that dandelions and daisies are in fact exquisitely pretty, that the furthest part should be a meadow, free range for slugs and mozzies and, hopelessly fancifully, badgers, lions and bears. Look back in wonderment at a time when you actually had to or even worse quite shamefully wanted to actually give a toss what some bunch of thicko duplicitous degenerates reckoned of you. Remind self that Mr Micawber, only mildly surprisingly, remains the sole financial guru you will ever actually need. Thus reinforced, instruct wife to bring well-deserved and refreshing beer (optionally; be prepared to consider divorcing wife if all you get is earache like Do you call that done? What did your last slave die of? ...yadda-yadda…)
Job jobbed, as quaint working people would have it. Pretty much sorted, I’d say. As ever, happy to help!
Gardening is an exercise in rational slices of work, here, so rarely does a job ever take more than two hours. It damn well hurts if I overstep the mark...
Our allotment is made up as grass paths and thirty odd 8' x 4' beds, so mowing takes care of the access, and each bed is a 'slice' of the work to be dealt with when necessary.
Bit of a waste of real space, but it works for us!
Mind you, pushing the mower downhill to 'The Patch' is OK, but I do drive it up back home, and I received a mild rebuke with a twinkle from a lovely girl who works in Tescos yesterday, so life ain't all bad...
Now you don't have to care, but at work the smart worker has to consider 'what is the fashion for this, what will personnel and the consultants think of my approach'. One does not really want to be seen as a plodder unless one has calculated the size of the payoff. The optimal career path may well include a plodder phase, the time integral value of peace and quiet being rather under rated.
I was for the reasons you give never keen on the idea of electric mowers with cables, luckily the advances in battery technology means that soon you will not have that problem.
I recently had the chance to use a Stihl battery powered chain saw, brilliant, chain saws need torque and electric power gives that in spades even when powered by battery, not cheap but the future.
Mowing the lawn for many is therapeutic, I had a neighbour who was MD of the family business and every Friday he would come home drive into his garage and drive straight out on his ride on to mow his 3 acres, to him it was a way of winding down.
Personnaly I find it a bit of a chore even with a ride on but it has to done, on the durability of modern machines I can lay claim to one great piece that I purchased 31 years ago, it was the first of several 21" Honda mowers used professionally, this is my own use mower, apart from oil and filter changes and blade sharpening it has never had anything changed repaired or even serviced, still has the original plug and starts first time, never had a Honda mower go wrong and all started first time, you get what you pay for.
Sam - genuine improvements are satisfying and I suppose that's a problem in large organisations. Not many people get to make improvements even if they see where they could be made.
Clacket - in warm weather I sometimes do sit back and admire, although not for half an hour because I still have that itch to get the job done. I've also had cause to thank those magnificently efficient circuit breakers - several times.
Scrobs - thirty odd 8' x 4' beds? Crikey, one or two would be enough for me.
Roger - yes fashion is a key to approved performance. An optimal career path could include a plodder phase if it didn't look like plodding. The trouble is, plodders often look like plodders.
Wiggia - I've wondered about a Honda mower although the lawn isn't big enough to be worth buying anything large.
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