With a lot of storm comes a lot of shoveling (or snowblowing). This occurs for a number of reasons. First, while conventional wisdom says to wait until the snow is done to clear it out (it makes sense, right?), when you end up with a large amount of snow, you have to do some pre-cleaning. Otherwise, the sheer amount of it won’t allow you to move any of it out of the way!
Second, particularly on the cul-de-sac where we live, you’re guaranteed to get a large amount of “back snow” on the driveway when the town plows the streets. So, if you don’t clear at the very least the base of the driveway, you’re sure to have a mountain waiting for you.
Finally, with the high winds that can sometimes follow large storms or blizzards, it’s likely that you’ll get some squall, with snow being blown back into the driveway, even after the snow has technically stopped.
For all those reasons, I ending up needing to snowblow or shovel three times for this storm; twice yesterday and once today. While that resulted in a large investment of time on my part, the other option would have been far worse; an even larger investment of time all at once, combined with me potentially injuring myself trying to move all that snow!
There is a lesson to be learned here about addressing big challenges or making big change. The key? When we know that something is coming, and that it will require a lot of work on our part, whenever possible, it pays to chunk out the work so as not to cause others to lose inspiration, feel as if they can’t handle the task, or simply give up.
Had I waited until this morning to shovel or snowblow, I likely would have given up, desperately hoping that our cars could drive over the mountain of snow waiting outside the garage!