Lawn Efficiency (Lawnficiency TM)

I’m obsessed with my lawn. There. I said it. Sometimes the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem but, the thing is, I don’t think it’s a problem. I call it a hobby. Or maybe a passion-project. Psychiatrists and therapists can determine whether it’s healthy or not.

The only thing that troubles me is this – is it worth my time? I read Matthew Dicks’ Someday is Today recently and loved it. Probably loved it for all the wrong reasons. My takeaway from the book was efficiency in everything because “time” is our most precious resource. I’ve been on a time-capturing kick for the past year once I realized how much social media was taking away from things I’d rather be doing like reading, writing/finishing a book, making more money at work, spending time talking to and being with my family in the moment, calling people and saying hello, or spending time with a hobby I enjoy. In this case, my lawn.

The philosophical question is the trade-off. If I spend, oh, two hours per week on my lawn, and paying someone to do that is $X amount, what could I do with that 2 extra hours? Then, would 2-hours per week (or 8-hours per month) be spent doing work activities that could lead to more sales and cover the cost, or working on my paying-side-hustles, or finally getting to writing/finishing my books (which leads to the question would any of those books sell, and how would I measure the economic impact of shifting my 8-hours of lawn-maintenance directly to sales-commission-generating activities?)?

2024 is the Year of Lawn Efficiency (aka Lawnficiency TM)

But I need to start with figuring out how much time I actually spend on my lawn? And do I handle this chore in the most efficient way possible. Without knowing and documenting what I’ve been doing for the past 23-years of home-ownership and lawn-maintenance, I can’t really tell you.

But that changes, now.

First, and this is a Matthew Dicks lesson because he knows exactly how long it takes him to shower (for example), it’s set a baseline for each lawn-maintenance task.

Day 1 (4/13/2024), Front Lawn

Keep in mind, this is early season and everything takes a little longer. I’ve long ballparked it takes me about an hour-and-a-half (01:30:00.00) to mow my entire lawn from beginning to end and it includes…

• Get out the edger, leaf-blower, mower, rake:
• Edge
• Leaf blow clippings
• Mow
• Leaf blow clippings
• Clean up

A couple initial ideas I’m experimenting with:

• Mow from outside to inside and in a “track-pattern” saving me time and turning from my traditional method of side to side only
• Lower my blades and mow more often so I can utilize the full width of the mower blade versus letting the grass get too long and only overlapping by a 3/4 or 1/2 blade width
• Push the mower instead of using the self-propel. The speed of the self-propel is set to mimic the average persons walking pace. I’m young(ish) and I can go 1 1/2x faster than the self-propel speed and it’s really, really good exercise to push the mower instead of just strolling along directing it

My early predictions are, by the end of the summer, I’ll be rethinking my entire landscaping so that it creates a more mowing-friendly pattern. The oddly shaped outshoots make it so the mower-guy (me) needs to do some inefficient forward and backward mowing and turns. The challenge will be making it lawnficient and not ugly.

Big things in store for 2024, friends.