Why thinking about your garden design isn't working
If you've been thinking about what you want to do with your garden for 3 months or more but still haven't settled on a plan, you might be thinking about it all wrong. Here's what to do instead.
Thinking about your dream garden
If you've been dreaming about what you could do with your yard for 3 months or more, yet still haven't started on it, you may be experiencing a condition many homeowners describe. I've experienced it myself at times when I didn't have a clear idea of what to do next.
It might feel like a nagging frustration, like a voice in your head reminding you that you still don't have anything to show for the time & energy you've spent up to that point. "What's the holdup? Let's go already!" - that voice in your head
Yet YOU know you've been thinking about it, mulling it over, pondering. Maybe you don't have it figured out quite yet, but with a little more time you'll get it sorted. ...right?
Yard procrastination
In the meantime it might look to your spouse or partner as though you are simply procrastinating.
To overcome that misconception, instead of sitting still you grab a fresh cup of coffee and go walking around in the yard, looking at the different areas and thinking about what you want here, there, and over beyond that bit.
Maybe your partner comes out to see, and you tell them about your ideas- along with some hand-wavy explanations. Maybe they don't look convinced, but seem to be willing to let you move forward since you appear to have a better idea of what needs to be done.
So you head inside, put on your gardening pants, and stop by the garage to start gathering your tools. Yet by time you get back out to the spot where you were going to get started, a bunch of new questions have popped up. "What about...?" "What if instead, I just did...?" "How does this part work...?"
Next thing you know, you're back inside 'just checking' on what that gardening blog post said, or scrolling Pinterest trying to find that picture you remember seeing one time.
And another day goes by.
What's getting in the way
If any of that sounds familiar, what might be holding you back is a common problem that lots of people encounter, especially when dealing with bigger & more complex projects like a garden.
It's called Analysis Paralysis. What it looks like is thinking about it some more while not appearing to do anything.
What's causing this to happen?
Humans are pretty good at sorting patterns out of a lot of information, and coming up with ideas.
Yet when we try to keep track of too many issues & ideas at the same time it's easy to start losing track of some of the threads. You might spend time working something out, only to realize you'd forgotten that this other thing also needs to be accounted for and doesn't work with what this part would do.
Some might call it frustrating, or confusing, or overwhelming.
At the root, these feelings all comes back to one mistake: trying to keep it all in your head.
That's a lot of work! Think about the sheer number of calories your brain is using trying to keep track of and process all of that information at once. No wonder it can feel exhausting, even though it looks like you haven't done anything yet.
Trying to work it all out in your head is sort of like...
Floating in space
Expedition 33 commander Suni Williams giving a tour of the ISS
Astronauts on the ISS have occasionally found themselves floating in the middle of a module unable to reach any of the sides. Over time they've developed a series of techniques to deal with the problem, such as tucking their body and then kicking their legs out to try to get a small amount of momentum going. Eventually they reach something to grab onto- but it takes a lot of effort.
Trying to work out a garden design in your head is a lot like floating in space- with nothing to grab onto you have to spend a huge amount of effort to make any progress.
A need for speed
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Formula 1 drivers need to go fast. Really fast. (Here's a neat video from Cleo Abram of Huge *If True about Formula 1 cars)
So what's their secret for going really fast? - Traction.
Traction is basically how well you grip the surface you are moving across.
Getting traction
Formula 1 drivers get traction from two things:
Grip of the tires on the track surface
Down-force from the inverted wing design of the vehicle
That turns out to be a handy analogy for getting traction with our garden design. To move faster, we need a way to:
Get a firmer grip on understanding the issues we're trying to solve
Increase our working pressure ('down-force') on the problem
...and we can't get either of those by just thinking about it, because every time we start we have to re-construct all of the information and ideas in our head before we can begin to consider options.
The work is the way
What I've found to be true again and again in my own work is that the best way to make real progress on a design is to stop thinking about it and to start thinking through it.
What does thinking through it mean?
It means letting go of trying to know the answer and instead simply focus on doing the next step in a process that will lead to a solution.
And that's the neat thing about design- it's a tried & true repeatable process, that works.
Instead of 'coming up with a design', -> you arrive at a design solution.
Which means... ?
Which means that instead of feeling stuck because you aren't sure what it should look like, you simply work on the next step of the process, knowing that you won't know what it will look like until you get there, and the only way to get there is to just. keep. going.
It's not about coming up with the answer- It's about working the problem until the answer reveals itself.
Which to me feels like freedom to get started.
:-)
TL ; DR
If you're feeling stuck about what to do with your garden, stop 'thinking about it' and start thinking through it instead.