Boost Your Productivity With a Maintenance Day

Fixing small things saves you from big losses.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?” It’s a Ben Franklin classic dating back to 1736 and was his advice to fire-prone Philadelphia in that it is easier to prevent fires than fight them. Today, it has taken on a broader meaning suggesting that it is wiser to fix small problems before they turn into big ones.

It’s good advice, whether it’s uttered in the early 18th century or the early 21st century, and it’s advice that can directly impact your overall productivity.

Take the time now to fix a couple of small quick issues before they become larger, more time-consuming ones.

Seriously, you can stop reading right here and walk away with one of the best bits of productivity advice I can give. I can think of several times when I wish I had this advice more in the forefront of my mind.

• Had I taken a few minutes to collect and record that month’s receipts, I wouldn’t have spent hours tracking them down later when it was tax time.
• Had I taken a few minutes to log my invoices for the week, I’d have had a much easier time tracking down a missing invoice a couple of weeks later.
• Had I taken a few minutes to update the virus definitions in my antivirus software, I might not have fragged that hard drive and put myself a whole week behind schedule as I redid several jobs from scratch.

That last one really hurt. I not only had to rebuild three books from scratch — books that were very close to publication — but I permanently lost files for finished projects that still occasionally come back to bite me on the ass. All because I didn’t take a few minutes to backup my files to an external drive or, at least, the cloud.

Lessons learned

It was that catastrophic hard drive failure that urged me to adjust my work routine to schedule a regular maintenance day.

Once a week — usually Sunday — I put my regular work, be it writing or layout, on the back burner and instead address all of the little chores that need to be done to keep things from getting out of control. I take care of my backups. I look through my planner and update it as necessary. I record my invoices into a running spreadsheet. I scan my receipts and put them in the appropriate folder for tax time. I answer any e-mails I’ve let slide. I make sure that I’ve sent out any pitches I still had on deck. I run a virus quick-scan.

Every two weeks, I check for virus updates and run a full-on deep scan and run a systems diagnostic. If anything is hinky, I do what I can to fix it that day.

I may not be writing or laying out journals that day, but I’m making sure that I’m going to have that full capability every other day. Because my paperwork has been taken care of, my computer serviced, my files backed up, and my e-mail caught up on, I am free to focus on my paying work every other day of the week. With small but essential tasks completed, I can have faith that my time is being used more efficiently.

I use Sunday as my maintenance day, but you can choose whatever day suits you best. Put your regular work aside for however long it takes to get the small tasks out of the way, then pick up where you left off.

Fixing things sooner than later

This doesn’t even have to be limited to work-related tasks. Something going on with the pipes in your home? Fix it now before it becomes a bigger (and more expensive) problem later. Car running a little rough? Get that oil changed. Ten minutes of yard work now means saving hours later. All of that time saved can be time spent on work or valuable family time.

I get it. We’re swamped, and paying work takes priority. I don’t disagree. But if a small problem transforms into a big problem — suddenly throwing you behind schedule, that’s going to impact your earnings.

Take one day a week as a fix-it day to concentrate solely on those little tasks and maintenance to keep your operation and home running smoothly. If one day a week is too much, try to commit to once every two weeks.

It really is easy to let things slide while we concentrate on larger projects.

But rather than ending up having to spend hours or days fighting fires, see what you can do to keep the fires from starting to begin with. Adopt a maintenance day and keep your work flowing smoothly as it should.

Cheers!

Thank you for reading. I’d love to share more with you via my Bi-Weekly Word Roundup newsletter sent to subscribers every other Sunday. It will feature news, productivity tips, life hacks, and links to top stories making the rounds on the Internet. You can unsubscribe at any time.