Take time to do it right ~ November 23, 1995

David Heiller

My daughter’s room is a mess. I’ve told her time after time to clean it, but she doesn’t do a very good job, at least to my adult standards.

I know what the problem is. It’s two fold. One, she needs a little adult supervision. Someone to help her find the boxes that hold her dishes, someone to help her organize her books and her doll clothes.

Malika was always busy in her bedroom.

Second, she needs time. My time. It will take some time to clean it up right. Her and me and couple hours of time.

Time. It’s something money can’t buy, something we don’t have enough of. And it’s something that is at the bottom of any job well done.

I sometimes find myself rushing from job to job and place to place, especially when there are deadlines like getting a story written before the paper is put to bed on Tuesday. Or getting in firewood before snow and the true onset of winter.

I bet you can name a few deadlines of your own. They are a fact of life, and they have been with us for a long, long time.

That’s what makes it so nice when you can beat the deadlines and take the time to do a job right.

I notice it when I start a new job, especially one of manual labor. No matter what it is, when I first start I am out of sync.

It's sometimes hard to jump right into a job,
unless the job is leaping from bed to bed, I suppose.

Like making firewood. It usually takes a half an hour or so before I get it right. I might stumble over a stump, or not bother to put in ear plugs, or use an axe when I should use a maul. I know in the back of my head that things aren’t quite right. I don’t feel good. It isn’t fun.

Then something clicks. I’m not sure what. If I could bottle it, I’d be rich. You could call it finding the rhythm of the job.

Whatever it is, it makes me slow down a notch, and do those little things that make a job go smoothly. If the chain gets a little dull, I’ll stop and sharpen it instead of getting frustrated with a slower cutting chain. It seems like a waste of time, stopping and sharpening that chain, but it makes the job go better in the long run.

I noticed it tonight when I looked at my daughter’s messy room. I want to yell at her clean it, and she’ll go through the motions of cleaning it for me. But it will look the same tomorrow night, and until I spend some time with her on it.

And probably it will take us a few minutes get into the rhythm of the job. Then we’ll go town, and we’ll do it right, and someday she’ll will do the same thing with her own jobs, and with her own kids.