I have to admit I am utterly exhausted as this week nears to a close. It is Friday, and I am ready for the weekend. A lot has been accomplished this week, a lot of progress has happened, but I still often feel like I am in a hamster cage saying: “Can I get out for a small break? Please can I stop spinning around this wheel?”

A work colleague shared an interesting idea in a meeting last week. She said: “We need to clean out the sewers and replace the pipes.” Maybe that sounds completely random to you, or maybe it resonates completely. How often do we stop, take an assessment for how things are really going and fix what needs to be fixed? If we were better about maintenance and checking up on our life, we might find that we do not need to clean sewers, and replace pipes because we were fixing and keeping up with life all along. How often does that really happen though? Do we fix the drip, or wait until it is a hole pouring water into our ceiling?

On Monday, I wrote about the mole infestation in our yard. It had been a trickle of random mole holes for months and months. We did nothing about it until this week when it wrecked havoc on our entire yard. I can only imagine the tunnels that have been dug a few feet down all around our yard and even under our house. Maybe sink holes are really the manifestation of a colony of moles over time? In any case, my colleague’s comment continues to make me think about work, home, and life projects that might be better handled by stopping and getting rid of the excess, the stuff that has built up (whether it be problems or a backlog) and focus on building a better infrastructure (replacing the pipes) so that there is a longer life to the foundation of a project or life situation.

I can think of a list of things at work and home where I need to gut and replace. I will leave you with this great quote:

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when are you going to have time to re-do it? -Bill Hosket [Basketball National Champion, World Champion, Gold Medalist]