Creating the Perfect Lawn is Easier Than You Think

My wife and I love walking through our neighborhood. Not only does it provide a way to exercise and catch up, but it means our kids are strapped into a stroller and not running around the house causing problems!

While walking, we like to look at homes and their front yards. There are all sorts of different types, but the perfectly manicured lawns look the most impressive to me. You know the ones I'm talking about: the grass is trimmed, thick, and perfectly green. The edges are crisp, with a tiny trench. Zero weeds. Zero grass clippings anywhere.

How do they make it look so perfect?

At one time I lived near one of those yards and witnessed the magic.

How To Create The Perfect Lawn

First, mow and edge your lawn twice a week. When you're done, use a leaf vacuum to pick up any stray pieces. Fertilizer is used, but the real magic is getting on your hands and knees and removing the start of any weeds.

That's it.

Let's say you wanted to have a perfect lawn. If you committed to spending 60 minutes twice a week on your lawn, it would happen quicker than you think:

• At first, you'd spend all your time pulling weeds.
• But then the weeds would be under control and you'd be able to mow twice as often. When you mow that often, it goes really fast because you don't need to stop to empty your bag (plus, the blades of grass don't look at whiplashed).
• That'll give you time to start edging. After a few sessions, that too will be easy to complete and you can focus on picking up scrap material (which will be minimal).
• In under 3 months, you'll have a perfect lawn that'll get you outside, exercising, and something tangible to be proud of.

The trick, of course, is to keep going once you reach this point. To build lawn care into your weekly routine, to do it because you care.

"Extraordinary Success is Sequential, Not Simultaneous"

Gary Keller shared that quote in his book "The ONE Thing". It means, having a perfect lawn, an extraordinary lawn, doesn't happen at once. It's not because you spent one whole weekend working on it. Instead, extraordinary results come from consistently making progress every single week.

Here's the interesting part. From a time standpoint doing a little bit all the time verse trying to do it all at once require about the same amount of time:

• If you spend 4 weekends a year overhauling your lawn (16hrs x 4 weekends = 64hr). Plus, 1 hour every other week mowing (64 from weekends + 26 every other week mowing = 90hrs total), you'll spend almost 100hrs working on your lawn.
• If you spend 1 hour twice a week working on your lawn, you'll spend a similar amount of time  (52 weeks x 2hrs = 104hrs total).

Yet one looks amazing all year round and the other never quite looks perfect. And for my neighbor, he never needed to block out an entire weekend to work on his yard (unlike myself, which I hated to "give up").

Home Maintenance Works Best Sequentially, not Simultaneously

Maybe having a perfect lawn isn't your goal. That's fine. Perhaps having a well-maintained home is your goal. If so, just like lawn care, the best results come from consistently setting time aside to work on projects. You don't need to complete everything at once, but you should complete something every week.

At first, the list will be never-ending, but over time, each part of your home will come under control, and maintaining it will become easier and easier. Do this now: pick 1 hour each week when you'll focus on home maintenance. Spend the first week creating your list of things you need to do. Then next week starting working on the list. Just like the lawn, you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll become a proud homeowner again.

Photo by Fauzan Saari on Unsplash