How To Get Motivated To Make Repairs Around The House
KEY POINTS
- Know Your Limits: Acknowledge when a task is beyond your DIY skills and hire an expert instead. It’s better to tackle it now than face a bigger issue later.
- Break It Down: Large tasks can be daunting. Divide them into smaller, manageable steps to make the process less overwhelming and more achievable.
- Set A Deadline: Having a specific timeframe motivates action and helps prevent procrastination. Whether self-imposed or external, deadlines drive progress.
You’ll probably know the feeling as a homeowner; there are things that have to be done around the house, but you just don’t have the motivation to do them.
They might not seem all that urgent, or perhaps you’re tired from work, or maybe you hate DIY… whatever the reason, the problem is these small, unimportant tasks can quickly escalate into big, urgent tasks, and at that point, they’ll cost more and be more disruptive both to fix and because of what they might do to your home.
The key, therefore, is to work out how to motivate yourself to get the smaller jobs done before they become bigger ones and you don’t have a choice anymore.
So with that in mind, keep reading to find out how to get motivated to make repairs around the house.
Know Your Limits
Sometimes it’s less about wanting to get started and more about not knowing how, and that be demotivating in itself. There might be jobs that have to be done around the house that you don’t have the skills or equipment for, or that require a specific kind of expert – and that’s not you.
If that’s the case, hiring an expert to get the work done on your behalf is the answer. It might be that you need sewer repair, for example, so you get help with it.
Or it might be electrics, plumbing, gas work, or maybe a large construction project – or a smaller one, come to that.
The point is, you need to know your limits when it comes to DIY and the tasks that have to be done. If you can’t do it, you’re not going to be motivated, so be honest with yourself and get help, and the job won’t be an issue anymore.
Break It Down
If a particular repair or household task seems like it’s just too much to handle, and that’s the reason why you’ve not yet started, don’t worry – we’ve all felt the same.
Looking at the big picture and thinking about the end result you need to achieve is enough to put anyone off doing anything, no matter how much they might want that end result to come about.
If that is how you feel, you should break the larger job down into smaller, more manageable tasks, and then work through those much smaller tasks one by one – you’ll get to the same end result, but it won’t seem like such an overwhelming journey to get there.
Take repainting a room as a good example; you can start by prepping the walls one day, cutting in the next, and then painting the walls the day after that (with another day for the second coat if required).
Set A Deadline
One of the things that can be a real problem when it comes to getting motivated for something is not having a particular deadline to work towards – without a cut-off date for getting something done, procrastination is a lot more likely, and in the end, the job could be put off indefinitely (until it turns into an emergency, as we’ve discussed).
So, whether it’s a self-imposed deadline or one set by someone else, a timeframe can help you stay on track and get started, even if you don’t want to.
