The following is a guest post from regular contributor, Sharon at Mom of 6.
Back in the days when I was a career girl, one of the rules of any project that I was working on, was that the project had to stay “in scope”. Which meant that if the project we were working on was to design a new computer system to manage our customer orders, that we couldn’t also tack on the goal of making that same computer system be able to run our warehouse. The warehouse thing was not “in the scope” of our original project… and should we start spending time working on the warehouse stuff- it would be extremely difficult to ever reach our original goal.
Well- this same principal relates to taking on any sort of home project too!
Take our laundry room project as an example. Last weekend my husband Steve wanted to replace the old plastic dryer vent (fire hazard!) with a new metal one. Now if any of you have ever pulled a dryer out of place to clean out the vent, you know how dirty/messy/gross it is back there behind the dryer. And so you can’t just clean out the area behind the dryer…. without also pulling out the washing machine and getting all the yuck cleaned out from behind the washer too, right?
So as we cleaned and moved things around, the amount of prior water damage to this room started to become more apparent (we believe it was due to leaks from the 2nd floor bathroom that leaked down into the laundry room). And we started to think about…
whether we should start tearing out all of the shelving. But then- who knows what we might find behind it… maybe the drywall would need to come out. And then if we start tearing out the drywall, wouldn’t it make sense to get rid of the linoleum floors too? And… and….
SCREECH!
This project had just grown way “out of scope”! It was time to go back and look at what our original intention was for this project…. which was to replace the dryer vent. Not to deal with the water damage issues. Now do we eventually need to remove this shelving unit and assess the old water damage? Absolutely. Which is why we added it to our “Home Projects” list. But since it is not an emergency… and since we have other projects that are ahead of it on the list…
like painting the boys bedroom (see- we’ve already purchased the test colors!)… the laundry room shelves will have to wait.
But I did feel that it was “in scope” to declutter those shelves a bit and re-organize them!
Do you find it challenging to keep your home projects “in scope”?
If you get a chance, I hope you’ll stop by to see me at Momof6 – a place where I write about organizing your home, using a family calendar, creating household routines, hosting at-home birthday parties, and holding a DIY summer camp! You can also find me over on GreatFamilyRoadTrips– where I share ideas and itineraries to inspire you to hit the road!
Hilda @ From Overwhelmed To Organized says
Sometimes I feel like house projects are like those Give a Moose a Muffin books… one thing leads to another which leads to another… Thanks for the reminder to stick to the priorities. But I think decluttering is always in scope 🙂
Becky L says
Good thoughts. I have projects on my list and have kept with my current scheme of my office space totally in sync before Thanksgiving and pictures on my gallery wall as well. It is always something with a house. Thanks for the reminder.
Marcia Francois says
I about had heart palpitations reading “in scope” – a reminder from my management consulting days…. which was not one of my favourite jobs!
I agree totally that we need to keep focussed 🙂