Earlier this week, I ran into an issue with a backed up drain in my basement. Now, I’ve experienced the same type of issue once before. And after getting it fixed the last time, I told myself I’d be more proactive in using products to keep the pipes clear of grease, food, and other debris–doing so on a regular basis to prevent gunk from accumulating over time.
Well, a year or so went by, and guess who didn’t keep up on the preventative maintenance?
The whole incident has reinforced for me of the value of preventative maintenance. Regardless of what we’re trying to maintain — our cars, our homes, our health, etc. — we all know that being proactive about it is important. But if we’re not careful, it’s also easy to put off doing preventative work until it’s too late. At which point, the maintenance that’s required is no longer ‘preventative.’
Unfortunately, this kind of work can be out of sight, out of mind. Or, if we do happen to think about it, the fact that preventative maintenance, by definition, isn’t urgent, makes it easy to postpone until later.
The issue of not thinking about it can be easily solved. For instance, I’ve already set up recurring events on my calendar so I’ll be reminded to do certain maintenance tasks every few weeks or months. This will take care of at least bringing these items to my attention. Once that happens, I’ll still have to actually take the step of doing something once I’m reminded to do so — and that’s the step that makes all the difference.
The older I get, the more I’m convinced that it’s much better to spend a little bit of time and money keeping things in working order on a regular basis, than to have to deal with issues down the road — issues that often end up costing us more time and money than it would have if we would have kept up on it along the way.