Monday Morning Match is a simple post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.
Get It Done Early
The air was brisk but still filled with moisture from yesterday’s rain showers. The sun was up but the bright rays still weren’t reaching our yard thanks to the neighbor’s trees on the hill to the East. I cleared the caulking tubes and cleaning rags from the extension ladder and carried it from the garage to the front yard. I laid the ladder down in the wet, leaf-covered lawn and slowly extended it to its full 20 feet. I then stepped back and looked up at the gutters on the eaves of my two-story house and could see them overflowing with wet, fallen leaves.
Cleaning the gutters is easily one of my least favorite “chores” around the house. The blend of my fear of heights, the nastiness of reaching your hands into the goopy, smelly mess, and the maneuvering of the heavy 20-foot ladder is what this task delivers the three or four times a year when it needs to be done.
Sure, I could hire someone to do it for me and I know I could invest in some sort of “gutter guard” contraption you see on those infomercials during the local newscasts but for some reason, as much as I hate this chore, it’s also one of those things that I feel like I have to do…if only so I can feel good when it’s completed.
Up the ladder, I went. Slowly making sure my feet were squarely in the center of every rung. As I reached the gutters each time and slowly positioned my bucket to gather the leaves, I would slowly look over the horizon of the roof and notice more of the sunlight breaking through the treetops. Birds were starting to sing and the occasional solitude of the neighborhood was only broken by a car rolling past with the tires splashing along the still-wet streets.
I realized at that moment, atop the ladder some twenty feet from the ground, that I may be afraid of heights…but I sure do like the view you get once you’ve made the effort to get up there.
As I emptied the last bucket of debris into the overly-filled, heavy lawnbag and retracted the extension ladder back to it’s manageable 6′ size, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders. Not only will I most likely only have one more “Clean the Gutters” on my Honey-Do List this year, but I also had the rest of the day ahead of me. The toughest thing I had to do was now squarely behind me. Completed! Done!
With the ladder placed back in the garage, I smiled knowing that the September Gutter Challenge was over. It was 8:58 AM and my entire day was still in front of me. Time for an iced coffee run as a reward for, as the Nike folks say, “just doing it.”
From Gutters to Good Intentions
Look ahead at your schedule this week. What are some of those “chores” that need to get done and even though you might not like tackling them, you know you’ll be happy when they’ve been completed?
Do you have clear, specific written goals for the rest of the year? Do you have a regularly scheduled time to prospect for new business? Are you focusing on business development activities first thing each and every day before you get bogged down and distracted with the business support activities that will certainly be part of your day?
Write those notes. Send those emails and text messages. Make those phones calls. Make meaningful connections on social media.
Climb down.
Empty your bucket and move the ladder a few feet to the right or left.
Climb back up.
Schedule appointments for the week ahead with someone. Breakfast? Coffee? Lunch? Plan a few pop-bys at client’s houses or make some unscheduled visits to a local builder model home.
Climb down.
Empty your bucket and move the ladder a few feet to the right or left.
Climb back up.
Who will you build relationships with? What problems can you solve? How are you going to have fun this week…on purpose? Go and get out the biggest ladder you can find. Extend it as far as it’ll stretch because it’s time to reach new heights.
Just start climbing while it’s still early in the day so you have the time to enjoy the view from the top once the gutters have been cleaned.
Photo Courtesy of Samuel Zeller
Photo Courtesy of sandid