Clean House or Cleaning House

I like a clean floor around the house. With 3 little boys, 2 playful adults, and a dog, it’s hard to keep the floors spick-and-span longer than a couple of days (hours, really). A few days back, Daphne, our dog, tracked in a good amount of grass from the yard and scattered it in the entry of our house. Atticus, my 3-year-old, decided he wanted to help me vacuum the mess. He was a big help for about 90 seconds, but once most of the major mess was sucked up he began bringing in new dirt and food crumbs and creating new messes to vacuum. He likes the sound of the vacuum sucking up big pieces of dirt, and who can blame him, it’s a satisfying sound. However, he lost sight of the goal and got sucked into (no pun intended) the task. The goal was a clean house, not to vacuum. The vacuum was just the tool. Remember this as you think about your money and your work. It may save you a lot of unnecessary messes.