|
I’m
ready for Spring. I’ve had
enough snow for this year; I figure that we got almost 7 feet at our
house, and that’s a heckava lot of work and worry when you have two
horses to dig out. I managed
to keep their corrals clear with the snow blower, but at one point during
the winter the snow was waist-high in their turn out area and they had no
room to move around. So we
hired a skip-loader to come in and plow it out; after that they had room
to walk (surrounded by 10-foot walls of snow)!
I
find it fascinating to watch as the snow melts because you can see how Mr.
Sun has to work so much harder to melt some parts of the snowpack than
others. There are several
variables (air temperature, cloud cover, shade, snow depth, and snow
density) and I have no control over the process.
Or
do I?
As
it turns out, I do. There are
certain areas on our property that get dangerously muddy and slippery
because the melting snow is uphill from a traffic area.
How can I hurry the process so it will dry out sooner?
Here’s how: I can
move the snow so that the runoff will flow away from the critical area.
By doing so, I am helping the sun do its job because a), I can move
it to a sunnier area and b), when I move it I break one large, dense pile
of snow into smaller pieces. The
sunnier area means that the sun can work on it directly (melting the snow
with radiant heat) rather than indirectly (through heating the air which,
in turn will melt the snow). Breaking
the large pile into smaller pieces allows the sun to reach more surface
area of the snow, attacking each piece separately instead of having to
attack one large piece all at once.
One
particular pile was taking FOREVER to melt.
I shoveled and threw it high in the air, so when it hit the
driveway pavement it would smash and spread all over, creating a zillion
little pieces to melt instead of one very large pile.
An hour after I finished it had melted and evaporated; there
was no sign it had ever existed. My
guess is that it would have taken a week for it to melt without my
“help”.
And
herein lies the lesson: to
complete a large project, it helps to break it into smaller pieces.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I have a large project to complete.
Overwhelm leads to anxiety, which leads to paralysis, which leads
to avoidance, which makes me more overwhelmed!
It’s a vicious circle. BUT…
if I break the big project into smaller ‘bite-size’ chunks, I avoid
the entire mental roller coaster and stuff gets done.
This
is a lesson in delegation as well. If
you are going to give a large project to someone else, help them avoid
being overwhelmed by either assigning it in smaller pieces, or by
encouraging them to do it.
Do
you have any large projects to ‘melt’?
Break it into pieces and it will melt and evaporate in
record time.
Would
you like to use this article in your own publication, e-zine, newsletter,
or website? Click
here
|
