Incremental Progress

I've been working on getting the house back in order after my better looking half procured a byzantine treadmill from her mom. I use that move as an excuse for the house being in such disarray but the truth is that its a mess from a combination of my not being home for the 10 of the last 14 days, and that it was a little messy before I left to be at Nonnie's house.

15 minutes a day of incremental progress can have a profound impact on the sanitation level and overall organization of a household. Throw in washing a load of dishes and a load of clothes a day and the progress has a compounding effect over time.

Image from Britannica

One of my favorite things to ponder in geomorph is the removal of mountains. Mountains are by definition massive, being created by the slow motion collision of certain types of plate boundaries which shove the earth's crust into the air. Both the Rocky Mountains and my own native Appalachian Mountains were once taller than the Himalayan mountains, if you go far enough back in geologic time. They were slowly eroded, drop by drop, by moving water carrying sediment down-slope on its march back to the ocean. A single small stream on a mountain removes as much material as a fully loaded industrial dump truck. Multiply that by the number of streams, and that by the number of years since that mountain stopped being uplifted, and then you've got an idea of how large that mountain once was.

Mountains, then, aren't torn down over night. They are worn down over geologic time by a stream working *just* hard enough to complete the work. No more, no less.

Should your house be any different?

Too bad I can't really get away with only mowing the lawn for 15 minutes a day though. That Sisyphean task has to be undertaken in a single day.