The Snowblower Effect: When Making Do Stops Working

Borrowed

"Like everything else worthwhile, successful investing demands a price. But its currency is not dollars and cents. It is volatility, fear, doubt, uncertainty, and regret, all of which are easy to overlook until you are dealing with them in real time. The inability to recognize that investing has a price can tempt us to try to get something for nothing. Which, like shoplifting, rarely ends well."

From "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel [Book]

Learned

Not long before the holidays, a Target delivery van made its way down our long, steep driveway. It was a Monday, just after a snowstorm. Although our cars could get up and down, driving on our driveway felt like traversing a Poconos mountainside in the Winter. Anyone in their right mind would have taken one look and turned around. Not to mention, we have a box clearly labeled with a sign asking drivers to leave packages there. Most do.

This driver did not.

Long story short, the van got stuck, fully loaded with packages. Dana saw it happen and let me know just before I returned home from a routine doctor’s appointment. It was the middle of a busy workday, so I took the driver at his word when he said he was handling it and went straight into meetings.

Hours into this debacle, just before sunset, the driver’s friend showed up to help. He mentioned it was his first day on the job. He assured me they would get the van out because the packages still had to be delivered. By this point, the driver had actually managed to move the van farther down the driveway, which only made things worse.

I left to pick up Mylo from daycare, and when I returned, they were gone.

It was getting late, so I called the police, who then called a tow company, which literally dragged the van up the driveway and off our property. This took a couple of trucks and several hours. My main concerns were the driver attempting a recovery in the middle of the night and the van slipping into the creek that runs alongside our house. Dana was also very pregnant at the time, and having a stranded vehicle blocking the driveway made getting out feel risky in an emergency.

Luckily, this story doesn’t continue past Monday, but it was the final straw in a long debate between Dana and me about how to handle snow at our house. My electric-powered Ryobi snowblower and my human-powered shoveling weren't cutting it. Hiring someone sounded like the easiest option, but I hated the idea of being on a waitlist on the snowiest days of the year.

So I finally went down a snowblower rabbit hole with ChatGPT. I had to laugh when I uploaded a photo of our driveway and my snowblower. The response was blunt. “Yeah, that little guy is way underpowered for what you’ve got.” Later, following up with, “Your driveway says: ‘I need a real machine.’”

Four days after the incident, I bought one at Tractor Supply. If you’re into this sort of thing, it’s a Cub Cadet 28 in., 272cc 2-stage gas snow blower, and a thing of beauty.

This past weekend, exactly a month later, we got hit with two straight days of heavy snowfall. And I finally got to put it to work. Four times.

On Saturday, I cleared the entire driveway in about 45 minutes. I covered more ground than ever before in a fraction of the time.

When I woke up Sunday and saw it had snowed again, I’ll be honest, I was a little bummed. But that feeling passed quickly. The first clearing made the second easier. About 25 minutes, and I was done. I was in disbelief.

What used to feel like an exhausting, drawn-out chore suddenly felt efficient and almost enjoyable. Each pass made the next one feel lighter. The snow kept coming so I had to do another run yesterday. Then, this morning I was back out there again. I managed to get a workout in, make breakfast for the family, and clear the entire driveway all before getting Mylo to daycare. What a feat.

After that first clearing on Saturday, I found myself almost gleefully shoveling the long stone pathway up to our front door. I kept thinking about how much time I had just gotten back. Usually, I would focus only on the top of the driveway and leave the cars there because clearing everything would take hours. Not ideal, but we made it work. Now I could do the entire driveway; then have plenty of time to shovel, salt, and play with Mylo.

It got me thinking about the kinds of investments we tend to put off because there are other ways to get something done. My electric snowblower “works.” Shoveling “works.” Carrying groceries and kids in car seats down to the house “works.” Making do works. Until it doesn’t. And then, we have to make a choice. Do we invest? What’s the alternative? In our case, sell our house and move?

As I finished shoveling the path, I started thinking about Barrel. Where does "making do" quietly cost us more than we realize?

Sometimes the investment is money, like the snowblower. In those cases, it might mean hiring a new role or using a tool to automate an arduous process. But investments can also take the form of time, effort, or even comfort.

A tough conversation with an underperforming team member or addressing difficult client feedback is an investment. It is uncomfortable. It is much easier to let things slide or convince yourself it will sort itself out. But when you address it directly, the return is real. You align on expectations and build trust in the process. Either the situation turns around, or a path forward emerges.

Investing time upfront in defining a project's scope is another. I can remember plenty of times where we chose to move fast and figure it out as we went, thinking flexibility was the most helpful thing we could offer. In reality, vagueness almost always costs more time and energy later. Being clear about what we are doing, and just as important, what we are not doing, saves everyone frustration down the line.

Even things like documentation, playbooks, or better onboarding fall into this category. They feel slow. They feel like overhead. But once they exist, everything moves faster and more consistently. The team spends less time guessing and more time doing good work.

What I keep coming back to is this: the investments we put off are usually the ones we need most. They feel expensive because we measure the cost in the present, not the payoff that keeps showing up over time, often in ways that build on themselves. And what's fascinating is once we choose to invest, we can't imagine what it's like to "make do" ever again.

The snowblower didn't just help me clear the driveway faster; it removed the feeling that I was already falling short the moment the snow started. It gave me back time and mental space. And perhaps the best payoff of all, every snowfall is no longer a source of friction between Dana and me.

The same is true at the agency. When we invest in what the situation actually requires, we're not just solving today's problem. We're making everything that comes after a little easier.

It's rarely about pushing harder. More often, it's about finally making the investment that changes how the work feels altogether.

Thought

What's the investment I've been putting off because 'making do' still technically works?