Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done pdfdrive com

I
CHAPTER 3
Choose What to Bomb
’m really excited because I’ll be able to demonstrate our full range of
capabilities on your lawn.”
This is yard-guy speak for “You have the worst grass ever,” and it was what
I was told when we lived in Atlanta.
From a distance, our lawn looked green. From up close, though, you could
quickly see that if you removed every weed I’d be left with a naked patch of red
Georgia clay. We were dealing with a 10-to-1 weed-to-grass ratio, and the yard
guy smiled with abandon as he stood in our driveway.
He knew that he’d get to sell us a dozen different services with names even
more chemical sounding than “Hydrox cookies.” He might even find a new
species of weed they would name after him, like some suburban botanist. I
didn’t have a yard, I had a weed laboratory.
I think husbands are supposed to feel ashamed about that. It’s bad enough
that handymen who come over to our house talk to my wife, Jenny, since she has
a degree in construction management, while I have delicate, callus-free writer
fingers. I also once threw my car rim and flat tire down the side of a mountain
because I was mad at the state of North Carolina. I didn’t know you were
supposed to keep the rim, which is something they probably teach you in Boy
Scouts. All those things are bad, but the yard is the worst. It’s a reflection of
your manhood and something you talk about while grunting next to a grill with
another guy in your neighborhood.
“You put down some new sod? Looks great, Mitch. What’s that you say?
Sorry, I can’t hear you over this gas-powered chain saw I keep running at all
times in case I need to do some impromptu logging. Didn’t mean to say
‘impromptu.’ That sounds a little too French for me.”
I didn’t care that my yard was something best navigated by Dr. Livingstone,
I presume. It could have been on fire and I wouldn’t have minded one bit.

---

I presume. It could have been on fire and I wouldn’t have minded one bit.
Why?
Because I had two toddlers at the time.
Kids are a crisis. They’re a beautiful crisis, but they’re a crisis nonetheless.
No one tells you this because they want you to have kids, too, so that the species
survives. You don’t realize it when you’re in the middle of it either. Your only
goal is to crawl across the finish line of an early bedtime and live to see another
day. “Dad, the sun’s still out and I can hear other kids playing.” “I don’t care,
it’s bedtime.”
Older kids aren’t necessarily easier. My eleven-year-old daughter told me
one night that when I die, she’s going to live off my dead fund. “Do you mean
life insurance?” I asked. “Sure, whatever,” she replied. At least you can reason
with an elementary school student, though.
Toddlers are relentless. You ever have your baby put her hand in the oven?
No? Just me? Gotcha. Your yard is the least of your concerns. Who has time to
figure out the sprinkler pattern Bermuda grass enjoys versus fescue? You’re on
high alert, riding the wave back down from a toddler meltdown or building back
toward one because the chicken strips you served today were the wrong shape.
They were the right shape yesterday. They were the only acceptable shape, but
today oblong is cause for panic and so you find yourself digging elbow deep in a
bag of chicken strips you used to malign other parents for feeding their kids,
looking for the magical bit of pressed chicken that will end this struggle.
Grass doesn’t matter.
It might later. When you’re out of the toddler zone you’ll have time for
things like your yard and pants that aren’t of the sweat variety, but for now, you
better practice choosing what to bomb.
The only way to accomplish a new goal is to feed it your most valuable
resource: time. And what we never like to admit is that you don’t just give time
to something, you take it from something else. To be good at one thing you have
to be bad at something else.
Perfectionism’s third lie is: You can do it all. I’m here to tell you that you
can’t.
You know this deep down, but there’s still a part of you, a part run by
shame, that thinks you’re one or two apps away from doing it all. This is why
chronic starters are always reading books about time management. Perhaps if we
sliced the day just a little differently or combined an audiobook with the
treadmill while also flossing, we could manage to get it all done.
I’m here today to tell you that you can’t get it all done. Forget that. I’d say

---

I’m here today to tell you that you can’t get it all done. Forget that. I’d say
you can’t even get most of it done.
Go ahead and pound the sand Charlton Heston–style if you must, but once
you’re done mourning the myth of doing it all, let’s get practical for a minute.
You only have two options right now.
1. Attempt more than is humanly possible and fail.
2. Choose what to bomb and succeed at a goal that matters.
Perfectionism tells you to take option one. In this chapter, you’re going to
learn how to take option two.
It’s going to be uncomfortable at first. The neighbor who smokes in his
driveway because his wife won’t let him do it inside is going to shake his head in
embarrassment at your lawn.
Unless you have a laundress, a real word that sounds like a princess of
laundry, your clean-clothes chair is going to turn into a Fraggle Rock mountain
of darks and whites while you work on your goal. Your kids will pick items off
it like street children stealing socks from a fair.
That’s OK. In moments like this, you do get to make a choice.
You can choose shame or strategy.