If It’s Worth Doing…

This past weekend, the weather got a bit nicer and Saturday morning presented weather warmer than we’ve seen in some time. I spent the morning cleaning up the trash that had compiled along the privacy fence across from our home. These were small pieces of rubbish that hadn’t made it from the can into the garbage truck and got trapped. Not glamorous work but something that needed to be done. The leaves were another story.

Knowing that I would spend my Saturday day raking leaves I went back inside for another cup of coffee. Later that morning, we heard a knock on the door. It’s the knock you hear in the early autumn when the entrepreneurial neighborhood kids start wanting money for their break opportunities and thoughts of Christmas holidays. I opened the door to find a neighbor’s son who explained that he was saving for a new iPod. He explained he was almost to his goal and did we have any work that he might do to erase that remaining deficit. Yes, looking over his shoulder at the leaves matted to our front yard, yes indeed we do.

Grabbing my work gloves, a couple rakes, some lawn & leaf bags, and a couple of tarps on which to rake piles of leaves for bagging, we headed out to the yard to discuss scope and price. ”How much for the whole yard?” he asked. We settled on a price and got to work. When raking areas side by side, he would ask “Is this area good enough?” ”What do you think?” I would reply. ”Well, sort of.” he said, probably hoping for a casual thought of “oh well, he’s only 11.” However, that’s not the response he got. Instead, I recalled a quote from famed UCLA basketball coach John Wooden ”If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you do it over?” A poem I heard on a Zig Ziglar podcast also came to mind:

ALWAYS FINISH
~ Anonymous
If a task is once begun,
Never leave it till it’s done.
Be the labor great or small,
Do it well or not at all.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a good friend and swapping stories of jobs we had growing up. We talked about how fortunate we are both now, although not at the time, to have employers and parents, who insisted on high standards, hard work, and thoroughness in any job worth doing. I hope that’s a trait that I can pass along to our daughter. In the mean time, it’s a lesson that I was able to pass on through raking leaves. In the end, our little entrepreneurial neighbor was proud of the work that he had done and was one step closer to his iPod. When we were cleaning up he commented that he was really going to enjoy that iPod knowing the hard work that it had taken to earn. And yes, the yard did look great.

My rule for today: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.