Embracing Chaos to get to Sustainability

July was a chaotic and challenging month for us, with a long string of things breaking – from the AC to the lawnmower to the garage door to the power washer to …and then there was an incident involving bats. I’ll spare you the rest of the list, but it was enough to make me feel overwhelmed, mad, and depressed.

 

I started to doubt myself, questioning how I could run a home maintenance community when I seemed to have no control over my own space. Thankfully, my dad had some wisdom to share. He work in power plants for his whole career. He told me when he came into a new power plant, it often took several stormy years of constant emergency repairs before he could get things on a smooth schedule. We’ve been in this house for four years now, so I’m hopeful that our own “rainbows” are just around the corner.

 

I think that in today’s world, especially with social media, there is always this feeling that you always have to be on top of everything. You have to keep up with everything already on your plate AND start some new, Insta-ready, “life fulfilling” venture along with it. But that’s not going to be reality. There will be days when there is simply too much there: you have to take a step back and reprioritize. It’s hard to walk that line between balance and progress, but oftentimes taking one step back helps you take three steps forward.

 

A way to intentionally move that needle is understanding the difference between reactive and preventative maintenance.

 

• • Preventive Maintenance follows a fixed schedule, regardless of whether upkeep is needed.

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  • Reactive Maintenance (aka – there goes the weekend maintenance) is completed as needed – as things break or about to break.

At first, you may find yourself spending more time in yucky reactive maintenance. But as you get things well oiled, you will find yourself spending more and more time on the easy street of preventive maintenance – which means you control the schedule and budget!