80% Maintenance Is More Than A Life Rule

Lessons learned from many home disasters...

Jul 13, 2024

Our hot water tank started leaking at some point yesterday.

Last night, at 10:30 PM, I figured it out when I walked into our closet to put my clothes away from the day. It was like I was walking into a small pond.

The carpet was soaked, the dirty clothes were wet, and several cardboard boxes of things we usually hide in the bottom of the closet were waterlogged.

I wrote a note last night to express my frustration because I had nowhere else to express it except shouting into the darkness of our property.

Yet, this morning, I was reminded of some sage advice my wife and I received a couple of years ago when our well pump went out, and we had to replace that (which was a much bigger deal than a hot water tank:

“Remember: Life is 80% maintenance.”

Life is 80% maintenance. Looking back over the years of us living in our house (six to be exact), we have had a lot of maintenance…

Two trees have fallen on the property; one nearly hit our house.
The well pump died and had to be replaced.
We had to replace our deck (only to remove it altogether and do something different because it would have cost $18,000).
Our furnace and heat pump died, which we had to replace in 105-degree heat.
We’ve, of course, needed to pump our septic twice since we have lived here.
I’ve had to replace every toilet in the house.
I replaced a dishwasher and both the clothes washer and dryer.

That’s a lot of maintenance for just six years of living in the house. However, it's an old house that has been added onto at least three times. Whatever the faults of the various previous owners, stuff breaks down.

As I was trying to draw some lessons out of these experiences last night while I couldn’t sleep, I realized that this rule for life applies to writing and creating.

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Writing and Creating is 80% Maintenance

At first glance, you might think that this is not the case. After all, we create something new daily, or we can publish books, launch them, and hope they create lasting income. But the reality is this:

Every day, the creation of a blog and email content is maintained.
Maintenance is the regular promotion of our books to create sales.

Think of it this way:

A blog post a day from Monday through Friday will maintain your connection to your audience and allow you to reach new readers.
An email at least once a week further maintains and nurtures your connection with people who trust or enjoy your content.
Promoting your books on social media, email, or daily content maintains sales.

To me, these are all maintenance activities, which account for 80% of my work as a writer. Only about 20% of the time am I writing and publishing books.

So, next time you work on a blog post or an email, remember you are doing a maintenance activity that enables you to grow a following, earn email subscribers, and sell books.