How to overcome DIY overwhelm

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What’s up. I’m ben hale and this is the easy living yards podcast. Creating beautiful yard should be easy. Let’s jump in and and create the dream yard. You deserve so you can enjoy more time doing what you love. welcome to episode eighty one of the easy living yards podcast today. Hey we’re going to be talking about whether or not you feel overwhelmed with your landscape and what you can do about it. We want to avoid being completely overwhelmed with our landscaping projects and instead we want to be focused on something that brings us joy brings us value and moves us in a positive direction with ourselves and with our landscape and so over wellm being overwhelmed can totally side track us from that process can keep a stressed keep us dissatisfied and and keep us from taking positive action and so we want to avoid that space of being stuck in that overwhelmed state so today okay. We’ll be talking about that before we jump into that. I want to talk about some awesome reviews that were left for the show recently so if you haven’t left a review for the show please consider doing doing so. I find these very helpful. also very energizing when i get these positive reviews it’s very helpful and very fun and also it helps other other people like you find the show and get massive value out of this show so it’s really helpful for that as well so if you’ve appreciated the show if you’ve gotten some value are you on the show. Please consider going over to itunes and leaving our view or i tunes. I think is becoming obsolete so i just say that you know apple. Podcasts is whatever you listen to. I think it’s mostly apple that allows reviewing. I don’t know if if you’re listening to android with stitcher or something else some of those other podcasting apps if they allow you to leave review please do so as well but specifically the ones i see are usually in apple podcasts. Whether that’s on your mobile we’ll hap- or the website itself so if you haven’t left her view please consider doing so and i want to share to reviews today so the first is generic rewards and generic wards left this not so generic review about great information on landscaping design. This podcast gives a lot of ideas on on landscape planning and maintenance for beautiful yard so thank you generic rewards whoever you are again. I love how how apple oh makes you make up these really weird user names and that’s a fun one so so thanks for that not so generic view the next one is s. D. teacher too so so s. d. teacher two left a wonderful review enjoyable and informative. I came across this podcast at random and have enjoyed it very very much. I like the variety of topics that are covered and the fact that his podcast gives practical ideas but also inspires people to be creative within the topic he discusses discusses my constructive feedback that sometimes he gets a bit sidetracked and loses focus on the topic of the day so thank you as a teacher for that wonderful oh informative enjoyable and constructive review . I also like that . I’m glad you liked the variety of topics. I try and keep him. You know tangible somewhat so hopefully you guys do like the variety of topics we talk about. If you have suggestions for topics that you maybe need help with or things that you just. I think might be fun to talk about. I’m always open to suggestions for new topics so thank you as a teacher to i. I have no idea what you’re talking about about getting sidetracked. I’ve never been aware the potential issue of course i’m being highly sarcastic. I just have to say that hopefully you’re glad that you don’t have to live in the same household as me and and and deal with this ridiculous sidetrack ability virtue that i have and i make absolutely no guarantees of as to whether or not i will reduce my amount of sidetrack agnes in the future because to be honest. It’s it’s very difficult for me to not get sidetracked because i i i get that squirrel syndrome from if you guys have ever watched that movie up that’s pretty much. I’m the dog that sees the squirrel and so it’s really hard for me to stay on topic public and now i’m probably going to be self conscious about that for the rest of this show but thanks for the feedback i will try to stay on topic as best i can i do already just just doesn’t show all right so thanks for the awesome reviews guys again. If you haven’t left to review for the show please consider doing so. It’s very helpful for for me to to hear from you and likewise for other people to find this show in the itunes algorithms top secret whatever you know get this this show into people’s suggested feeds and that sort of thing by how many reviews are left and how active people feel about the show so again gone lever lever review.

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I really appreciate it. It’s a wonderful way you can give back to the show and hopefully you find value in the show so thanks guys views now. Let’s go into our main topic so so. Are you feeling overwhelmed with your landscape. If so today we’re going to talk about what to do about it so before that of course i always like to preface this mic shows with really diving deep on on kind of understanding the you know the root causes this stuff and so that’s what i wanna do about feeling overwhelmed today so to me gene landscaping and especially when it comes to feeling overwhelmed landscaping is about finding focus and peace well creating a beautiful low maintenance yard. Doesn’t that sound wonderful right. If only that could be possible right. Well i think it can i do think you can find focus in peace while creating beautiful woman it’s your i’m not saying it’s all roses and butterflies and sunshine all the time but with clear goals is a clear vision in place clear plans in place of course that couldn’t get sidetracked just as much as me right but hopefully with those with that structure in place it can really help you focus especially in those times of feeling overwhelmed to to track your progress to see the progress you’ve made and to also continue moving forward in a constructive way right to do work. That’s constructive and helpful as opposed to just spinning your wheels so that’s what i really talk about today. When it comes to feeling overwhelmed here are would i perceive as some of the causes of overwhelm especially when it comes to landscaping so the first is frustration to me. Frustration is when expectations don’t meet the reality so you have a certain expectations of how things will be and the reality is much different so i can think of like working with kids right. this of course has never happened to me with our three kids but you know you have a certain expectation tation that maybe they’ll sit still and focus on a specific task for let’s say five minutes right but in reality you maybe get about one minute of focused focus play with that specific task before they’re talking to you and asking you questions and and trying to to do something else while you’re trying to get chores done right and so that’s where frustration happens right you expected five minutes of peace of where you could complete a certain other you know do some dishes right but in reality you got one minute of peace and so you get frustrated instead of being thankful for that one minute. You’re frustrated that you didn’t and get the other four right so that’s an example of where frustration comes when expectations don’t mean reality likewise with our landscapes. We so often get frustrated for me. Specifically i have this idea of this beautiful yard that i want. Our yard is not to wear. I would like to be not by a long shot and so a lot of times. I get overwhelmed frustrated. I get frustrated when i think of where i’d like my yard to be and then i see myself having to cut the grass right or pool bunch of weeds or whatever instead of really working on that long term goal and so instead of being thankful full for the beautiful parts of a yard that we have the wonderful changes we have been able to make. I get frustrated about the changes. We don’t yet have likewise when it comes to feeling over want to me. Overwhelm happens when goals are unclear or the next step is unclear to reach the goals. You have okay and overwhelming again. Is that that just that feeling of being completely completely he stopped and without being able to take action because you’re so frustrated or you’re so dissatisfied with the way things are right and so we want to get away from that. It’s okay to feel dissatisfied with where you are because some of that disatisfaction drives progress right but you don’t wanna be so dissatisfied that it keeps you from making clear clear decisions or setting clear goals or making clear action. That’s the problem with overwhelmed. Okay so so when your goals are not clear ear or your next step is unclear to reach those goals you feel dissatisfied and you have no idea what to do about it right and that’s where that stress with overwhelmed comes from likewise sometimes we impose self imposed expectations or we have unrealistic perception of what others think about us that can lead to overwhelm as well so when it comes to setting expectations usually when it comes to their own landscape we perceive you know maybe we were dissatisfied with with the status quo right.

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We have a feeling that we we want. We want it now right that whole delayed gratification versus instant gratification thing right. We went this beautiful landscape now. We we don’t want the mess we have right now right and so with that too sometimes we impose these expectations one that we can get things done so quickly when in reality the work to you know to make change takes a long time right it takes a lot of effort to plan it and to do it properly and then to do the work to change it takes a lot of work right and likewise we also sometimes set these expectations that that we need to have at a certainly things need to look a certain way and it might not always this be the case. Maybe we have a desire right certain desire but when we feel like it needs to be a certain way sometimes it leads to an unhealthy expectation dictation likewise. We might feel that our neighbors are are judging us or or perceiving uh-huh a certain way based on how our landscape is and that also set some unrealistic sick expectations too sometimes so really what i’m thinking is that we just need to check. Those expectations little bit right so just kinda. Just calm it down just a little bit right again. It’s okay to be dissatisfied. It’s okay to be unhappy little bit with where things are right now but what we wanna do is. We want to turn that into positive energy for change right. We don’t want it to turn into a negative festering energy or complete overwhelm right. That’s where we don’t want it to go. We want it to turn into positive energy to move forward with change okay and said that’s the difference okay. So how do we really perceive steve overwhelm or how does it manifest right so you feel overwhelmed. You just don’t know what to do. Here’s how some behaviors might manifest themselves not knowing where to start complete frustration that leads inaction apathy about your landscape constant stress and worry about your landscape if you feel constantly constantly stressed and worried maybe you don’t have clear goals in place right so think about that if you really constantly stressed and word why right lack of focus again and that goes back to goal setting right so you guys see where my solutions might lie with some of my my stuff that i’m going to be talking about in a little bit working a lot of small things but not toward you guessed it not toward clear goals okay so again. There’s a theme here right so let’s think about those clear goals that we can put in place. So how can we avoid getting over. Let’s talk about some steps that can help us avoid getting overwhelmed and then also when we do feel overwhelmed a start talking about some steps to reduce that overwhelm as well all right so. Let’s start with how to avoid getting overwhelmed. I i you want to focus your priorities. Okay focus on what you like with your yard again. Some healthy tension is good right. Healthy tension. Shen motivates you but it’s important to keep it healthy. Okay so you want to acknowledge your desires and goals you want to set set clear priorities and you wanna set reasonable expectations over reasonable timeframe so that’s how to keep that tension healthy all right now. Let’s specifically talk about how to reduce overwhelm so we just talked about avoiding overwhelm right focusing on your priorities what you like with your yard hard having a healthy amount of tension now what if you’re already overwhelmed right you already beyond that reduction piece or avoiding bees in you are overwhelmed right. Ah how do we reduce it. Okay so when it comes to reducing over one i i have a warning avoid garden centers without planning manning okay so so many times we get stuck walking past a garden centre nursery and thinking oh we’ll just get something real quick and we’ll figure out how to put in our our landscape and make it look pretty right. It’ll it’ll help. No it won’t okay it. It’s it’s possible but likely it won’t okay and instead it will lead to frustration in extra work so we want to make sure we have a plan in place with clear goals and clear vision first before we step foot in the garden center now the only only the only caveat to this is if you’re going to the garden center for to help with planning to understand what’s in bloom or what types of plants you like or maybe get some tips and pointers. Here’s from from the the nursery people there okay but that’s different than going there with intent to purchase something without clearly planning so that’s what we want to avoid read next. We want to get it clear vision a clear vision for your landscape whether it’s a small project or your whole landscape is really important.

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This clear vision helps you always make decisions that serve your vision make sure that all the people in your household and all creatures householders satisfied with that vision and it helps you avoid decision anxiety all things that are very helpful in planning landscape. It’s the first thing you do if the second course in our easy living yards membership and it’s because it’s so important i didn’t all right the the first course if you’re curious now. I you know i t’s it’s not the first one why not well. The first course is about finding your why okay which is also really important. We’ve talked about it in previous episodes as well but having a clear driver for why you want to change your landscape what motivates you is. The first course the second course in the membership is about making this clear landscape vision now so you can go over check it out in full detail in the easy living yards membership over at easy living yards dot com slash membership but also i have an awesome episode that dies into this topic as well over at episode at seventy two you can go to landscaping with vision and talk more in depth about this topic so i’m not going to dwell on it too much today just for the sake of making making this not a ridiculously long show but also because i have that other resources you can quickly check it out over episode seventy two and of course there’s link in the show notes over at easy living yards dot com slash episode eight eighty one today’s episode eighty one right okay so get that clear vision. That’s really important. It drives all the decisions you make in your planning process and you’re planting an installation process so it’s super important next you wanted to determine the book it’s of work or the project areas that you have so for example you understand . Do i want to you know two buckets of worker like a new front yard landscape or a garden around your mailbox or you know taking care of an old garden embed sprucing it up a bit right creating a new grilling location for your grill things like that. Those are buckets of work. Okay understanding standing what buckets of work you have helps clarify the different various projects. You have okay so next. You want to prioritize your projects prioritization. It has multiple factors that go into it okay so you you factoring in things like cost beauty use function effort urgency right so all those things really factor in to to whether you know what priority each project is okay okay so for example with our house when we moved into our house. It was a mess okay we bought for those of you haven’t heard the story. We bought a short sale house right so short sale is like a pre foreclosure house. It was horribly horribly taken care of for about thirteen years straight and in this time the house probably we’ve got about fifty years of wear and tear on without being maintained okay and so you know i of course we had to make the inside of the house habitable before for we did anything to touch the landscape. The first project we focused on in our landscape had to do with functional urgency okay so we had this backyard where basically the backyard considered this pit right. It was actually like on one part of the pitch. It was almost it was like two feet deep okay so it wasn’t like a a well that you know you fall into or whatever but it was a pit as what we call it all right and so this pit used to be an above ground pool slightly recessed in the ground a little bit and now it was basically a trash pitt so had a burnt up box springs mattresses mrs couch in there so that’s there’s three items we could actually figure out what we’re in there so had a lot of nasty stuff broken glass. All sorts of metal objects objects just randomly strewn about like rusty. It was weird if those like kitchen spatula hammer like all sorts of random stuff okay okay parts of the old pool case so on top of that so that was just an unsightly thing right we couldn’t use the space for one but also it was just really the and massive eyesore on top of that though the the grading that had been done to put in that pool had changed the drainage crossed the property where the water now pulled up right at the base of the rear foundation of the house that could cause major structural damage the home and so that needed to be addressed immediately so what we did is as soon as we were able to live in the house without feeling disgusting and we had hot water then we we focused on that landscape and we took care of that grading issue and so for the weekend we rented did some heavy equipment.

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We filled in the pit. We regraded the landscape so it would not pull up at the house and instead the water flowed away from the foundation to to a safe safe area that didn’t also you know damage our our neighbors property or anything like that and we took care of that that urgent functional problem problem. Unfortunately we didn’t really beautify the place now. It’s just a giant lawn and you guys might know how. I feel about lawns. They’re nice. It’s just too much. It’s overdone right and so so a lot of work to maintain that space but it’s better than causing massive structural damage to our home potentially and also you know being a a hazard out there with all that sharp metal and everything so we took care of that problem person so that’s going back to this prioritization of projects. Hopefully that wasn’t listen to much of a sidetrack there right okay so it really we had to prioritize that project first book before we could focus on any sort sort of beautification project and that’s what i’m getting at here so you wanna major all the factors you have cost beauty use or function effort urgency. Okay okay now. I have more details over at episode forty three how to start a d._i._y. Landscape design like a pro and that helps you figure out some of this prioritization asian stuff so go check out that episode. If you wanna learn more about that so the next thing about reducing overwhelm so so far we’ve talked about one the warning to avoid garden centers and and those impulse buys secondly get a clear vision and that’s really more important than the first on the first one is just a warning right secondly. Get a clear vision for your landscape deep in your projects. Okay really helps a lot. Determine the types of work. You are the buckets of work. You have project areas. prioritize your projects wchs next. I want to help you get a quick win. This really helps with reducing overwhelm. Get quick wins something. You can be happy about something. You can feel proud out of something feel. You feel like you really did something that made a positive change in a measurable difference okay so when it comes to getting being a quick win this helps. You have confidence helps. You have a feeling of success and really talking about here is a small beautification project so some examples are front entrance garden a small front entrance garden your porch decorating your porch or sprucing it up a bit a mailbox garden. Pardon or a small patio guard. All of those things are great ways to get a quick win or even. Just you know sprucing up your patio itself. You don’t even have to work on landscaping at that point rate just some potted plants low maintenance potted plants all right likewise for your porch. Potted plants go a long way. Make sure they’re low maintenance self watering pots hotz okay . I have a you know. I did a show on that. I’m trying to remember the episode here episode thirty four. I talk about easy container gardening. So if you you wanna do like a patio garden or porch or patio potted plants potted plants on your porch as you beautify go check out episode thirty four with easy container gardening hardening you don’t want just you know super high maintenance containers because it’s going to be more stress than it’s worth. You’ll probably be dissatisfied as well so check out that episode okay likewise likewise so again your front entrance report a mailbox garden a small patio garden right things like that use easy plants. That’s it’s important thing so go. Check out have a free easy plants list. It’s three plans. That’s it super focused. Super easy helps. You make a quick decision right. These three easy plants work on almost any landscape across the united states as long as you have a little bit of sun. One of these three replant will work for you. Okay so go check out that easy plants list in the show notes likewise a heaven episode fifty three talks about simple landscaping being ideas. These are super easy projects that you can do to transform your landscape and get a quick win and get over that overwhelmed piece all right so when you start to feel overwhelmed you think back to that project that you did that. Got you a quick win and made you feel satisfied. Okay so that’s important. Get a quick win. Get a quick win. I mean so when you feel overwhelmed. Think back to your quick win all right guys. If you wanna learn more again i did another show on this as well episode forty one. I talk about avoiding landscape overwhelm. So if you feel like you really want more more about this topic you know i talked this from a slightly different angle in episode forty one so go check it out as always i talked about a lot of links today so go over to easy living yards dot com slash episode eighty-one or if you’re on your mobile. It’s a little bit shorter to go to e. L. y. Oy dot h.

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o. w. slash episode eighty-one there have linked to a free plants list super easy plants that you can get today to put in your landscape not as an impulse buy guys landscaping with vision for it episode seventy two how to start d._i._y. Landscape design like a pro simple landscaping ideas and how to avoid landscape overwhelm. If you want to dive even deeper okay as always guys. If you’re ready to create the yard you deserve check out the easy living yards membership over at easy living yards dot com slash membership and has always you can ask me a question. If you have a question you need some help on go for easy. Living yards dot com slash pod. That’s easy living yards dot com slash p. o. d. and they’re right at the top of the pages of button to ask me a question as always guys. If you’re on your mobile you can type in e. l. y. Dot how l. y. Dot h. o. w. to get to the same links so e. l. y. Dot h w slash episode eighty-one gets you to all these links as well all right guys. Thanks for tuning in make sure you live with passion and make tomorrow better than today and make sure you you enjoy your landscape for what it is right now without getting overwhelmed and find focus in peace creating your beautiful yard cheers.