• by David Baker , Op-Ed Contributor, September 12, 2016

For Father’s Day last year I received a card from my spawns.  Pictured on the front was a screwdriver, wrench, pipe fitter, saw, pliers, and a drill, with the caption “Dad, this year you get a card, next year you get your tools back.”   

Tools shopping can be the most frustrating thing to do when you need something and the most fun way to burn time when you don’t need anything.   There are the MacGyvers of the world, who can basically fix anything with a knife and BAND-AID®, and there are those of us that have to make lists before we go or we’ll come back from Home Depot with our bag of misfit toys.    

Home repair and marketing automation are contextually similar. They are both jobs that require continual maintenance. The highs are short-lived and the lows are never forgotten.  Yet, there are an endless set of options (tools or contractors)for how to accomplish the job depending your budget, level of risk tolerance and patience.  

Think marketing automation when you read the following set of tips, to lighten up a Monday read:

1. Never start a job by going to Home Depot looking for answers.  You’ll be influenced by the packaging and eye level placement of products, and you’ll come home with a bag full of misfit toys.  

2. Don’t ask your neighbor with the worse lawn on the block for advice.  

3. Make a long list, but fix the easy things first.  Momentum is an important thing in DIY.

4. Don’t let the pressure from your spouse (boss) force you to take the quick-fix route.   The other day my wife asked me for the fifth time to put in a new toilet-paper holder.  End result, I duct-taped it six feet up the wall, where it could not be reached by anyone with normal hands.

5. Be patient and add humor. Not everyone is MacGyver. You are going to make mistakes, including some silly ones (like putting a display case together backwards). Just accept it and move on.

6. Think about the money value of your time.   It may take you three hours to install a light fixture, while an expert can do it in an hour, with less risk of electrocution or spousal jabs.  What’s most important — your time or your pride? They don’t always align.

7. Having more tools doesn't make you better at using them, only a bigger, heavier box to carry around.  If you can’t name the tool, you shouldn’t have it.

8. Watching someone else do it, is NO fun, but neither is cleaning dirt out of your fingernails.   There’s a place for expertise.

9. Balance risk with smart decisions. I’m alive today because I didn’t take on electrician work even though it looks easy.

10. Once you fix one thing, just recognize you have 100 other things in line. You’ll never catch up — just make the ride better and have some fun.

Always remember, it is usually the neglect of timely repairs that makes rebuilding necessary.