I hate leaf blowers.
Every Monday my gardeners come and fire up 2 loud leaf blowers. They circle around my house blowing all the leaves, dust, sticks and rocks away from my yard and straight into my neighbors yards.
A couple days later, my neighbor’s gardeners come. They fire up their leaf blowers and blow the leaves and stuff away from them and right back to my house. It repeats week after week.
Every house on my block participates in this strange ritual. We all push our leaves and yard waste back and forth to each other. No gardener actually picks up the leaves. They just get blown around.
This is extremely frustrating to watch. In addition to the loud noise and wasted gas, it seems that nobody actually takes responsibility for making the neighborhood look nicer as a whole. While 1 specific yard might get cleaned up, all the other neighbors are frustrated — until it’s their turn.
Maybe I am a leaf blower?
Admittedly, I can relate to this when I’m going about my day at work. Sometimes instead of fixing my problems I just blow them away to someone else temporarily. I make my “yard” look nice, and surround myself with enough busy work that I seem productive, but the truth is I haven’t contributed much to the bottom line.
When this happens, shortly afterwards my issues seem to show right back up on my front door step. Then I roll up my sleeves and blow them away again. The process repeats.
So, I have no right to get angry at the gardeners, when I’m kind of doing the exact same thing.
Don’t be a leaf blower:
Today, when you’re attacking your to-do list, try and remain conscious about if you’re delaying your problems or actually solving them. No more blowing leaves!
Keep these questions in mind:
- What is the real problem you are trying to solve?
- Ask “why” 3 times… do you have a deeper issue?
- Is the activity you are doing right now moving you closer to your end goals?
- What are the next steps in the process, after this task is off your plate?
Happy Monday, have a great day!
– Joel
*Photo by Callum Hill. Cheers!