*Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time.
Let’s do an exercise. Think back to where you were 120 weeks ago. A random block of time, we know, but humor us for a minute. There are 52 weeks in a year, so essentially, 2 years and 3 months ago. So, at the time of this blog post, let’s travel back to January of 2022. Does it seem like a super long time ago in your mind? For us, it seems like a few minutes ago.
To summarize, time moves fast. We started this blog 120 weeks before we pack a single bag. It sounds like a really long time, until you think back to where you were 120 weeks ago. We know we are going to blink and be standing in an empty house with two plane tickets in our hands (ok, on our phones – who print tickets anymore?).
We often talk about what this would look like if we had come up with this idea a year and a half from now. Could we do all of this in 6-ish months? Yes, but it would look different. While 120 weeks is arbitrary in that it is when we decided to formalize this kernel of a plan we had been batting around for a while, it is useful in that it provides us the luxury of being able to take our time and make decisions that aren’t rushed.
The 120-week timeline has allowed us to relax and live by a few rules for our downsizing:
Create a master list.
We sat down early on and created a list of everything that needs to be done before we put the house on the market. We walked every room in the house and listed every project – big and small. We then took that list and made a VERY rough timeline of what needs to be done sooner and what can wait until later. When we decided to repaint the house and paint all of the woodwork in the house white, we knew it was a really big job and that we needed to start that process as soon as possible. Had we waited until the last 6 months, we would be killing ourselves painting every night and weekend. On this timeline, we pick a room a month and focus on that room. Other projects, like jacking up the concrete on the driveway, need to happen sooner than later, because there is a risk of further damage (and a more expensive repair) if we wait on them.
Make use of the weather Mother Nature gives you.
Especially at this time of year, the weather is all over the place – cold one day and sunny and warm the next. If you’ve made a hard commitment to work outside one weekend and the forecast pulls a bait and switch on you, you have a lost weekend. Use your master list to add flexibility into your list. Surprise cold snap? Pivot to an indoor project to keep making progress. Right now, as the weather is meandering between 40s and 70s, we have both painting projects and garden projects in process. The downside is that we have to live with half-completed projects that are being handled concurrently as the weather dictates (and I HATE unfinished projects). But the upside is that we have very little downtime where nothing is getting done (unless we choose to have a day where we do nothing, which happens).
Lean into your moments of energy.
We both still work every day, and we have all of the general daily responsibilities you do. The house needs to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, meals prepared, dog walked, etc. After a full day’s work and chores, many nights the only thing we want to do is sit on the couch with a glass of wine and a cocktail and binge tv shows. But we’ve often found that, even when we think we’re not up to a project, we just do a small thing and that tends to turn into us getting a whole project done.
Be kind to yourselves, not every day will be a productive day.
We know we really should tackle some things on our list, but we just don’t have the mental energy. Since we have the luxury of a more relaxed timeline, we can take movie nights and lazy evenings without de-railing our plan. Build in breaks and have grace with yourselves when you just can’t today.
Leave room for the projects you don’t anticipate and moments of serendipity.
In the next 112 weeks, something will need to get fixed that you didn’t anticipate. Last week we came home from an evening out to find that our dog had ripped up an entire section of the carpet. That was not on our list of things to fix. The fire pit patio was also not on our list. We just got a wild hair and did it. Leave room in your timeline for these surprises.
On the other hand, we had things on our list that were further down on our timeline that got moved up due to unanticipated events. We had a hailstorm in the fall that damaged our roof, siding and deck. We did not have plans to replace the roof or the siding, but now that insurance will cover it, those projects are happening this spring. Refinishing the deck was on our list, but not a high priority, as we were going to do the work ourselves. But once the insurance company paid for it, we hired someone to do it and it should be done in a few weeks, well over a year ahead of our original timeline.
The next 112 weeks will fly by in some respects and drag by in others. That’s just the way time works when you’re working toward a deadline. We will continue to use make good use of the weather, tackle the painting room by room, and declutter little bits over time. As much as we both would like to be on a beach somewhere RIGHT NOW, we know that we need this time to prepare, to raise one last kid, and to enjoy our friends, family and the stability of life that we will very likely come to miss once we’re gone.
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