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Yes, it’s that time of year again.
Christmas Day is looming fast and will be here before we know it.
My wife and I have started our Christmas shopping and always aim to get it done before the start of December each year. It’s always a nice feeling to have the presents wrapped and stored away until the big day.
However, I’m conscious that many people scramble around at the last minute, fighting for parking spots and desperately deciding what to buy for their friends and family without a list, a budget or anything distantly resembling a plan.
For people in this situation, Christmas goes from being a great celebration to becoming an additional, unnecessary stress. They dread the whole experience, it sits over their head like a black cloud in the few weeks preceding the big day and then they’re relieved when it’s over.
It doesn’t have to be like that and I don’t think that it should be like that. With some careful planning and early action, Christmas Day can become the day of joy, celebration, reflection and quality family time that it has been designed for.
As I considered this recently, it struck me that the principles of planning and action is appropriate for virtually any deadline that we are involved with.
For the past 10 years or so, we have relied on a local guy named Keith to mow our lawns.
He’s generally accompanied by a massive St Bernard dog, much to the fascination of our kids and he’s done a great job for us.
However, Karen and I sat down and realised how much money we would save if we just bought our own lawn mower and did it ourselves (or should I say myself?).
So we bought one a couple of weekends ago and I’ve already had my first shot at mowing our own lawns.
As I contemplated this change for us, I realised that there are a few important principles that we can learn from lawn mowers.
When I was growing up, we used to go on the occasional interstate road trip as a family.
I can remember with great fondness the long drives, the regular stops to stretch the legs, the sights along the way and falling asleep to the rocking of the car, all things that I look forward to sharing with my kids in the coming years as we go on our own road trips.
Of course, in romanticising such trips, I’m choosing to ignore the inevitable “are we there yet? questions from the back seat and the undoubted arguments that the three kids will have along the way.
Having said that, road trips are a great tradition and there are a few terrific principles that we can learn from them.