Frugal | Painfully Slow Progress is Still Progress

Painfully Slow Progress is Still Progress

Posted by Lynnae on February 27, 2008

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Turtle

Sometimes you may feel more like the tortoise than the hare, but slow and steady really does get the job done!

The following is a guest post by Catherine of Frugal Homemaker Plus.  If you like this post, consider subscribing to Catherine’s RSS feed.

I have  been thinking about progress a lot lately. Do you ever go through a time period where you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels and getting nowhere?  I have.  It can be with anything- your personal life, your money life, your school life…it happens. You are doing things but it feels like nothing will ever get done.  What good is saving five dollars a month?  It is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to what you want to save, right? I find the best thing to do when I get stuck in one of these ruts is to remind myself that painfully slow progress is better than no progress at all. 

This can be applied to many areas of your life.  I used it all the time when I was writing my master’s thesis.  I had this idea that I needed to be sitting in front of my computer 10 hour a day working on it.  I know that several of my fellow grad students did that very successfully.  That method was not for me.  By the time I got done with research and really into writing part of it, I was too overwhelmed to deal with it.  I had so much anxiety over it by the end, I simply stopped trying. 

When my advisor started getting really antsy, I pulled it out and decided to work on it for ten minutes a day.  I could work longer on it if I wanted or really got on a roll, but I had to work on it for ten minutes a day no matter what.  It was slow.  Ten minutes did not accomplish much in a day, but ten minutes over several days added up.  Ten minutes a day (sometimes more, but usually just the ten minutes) got that thesis from a blobby mess of words and index cards and outlines to a workable piece of writing in a couple of months. Then I got it ready for my defense, practiced my defense, and made the arrangements to go back to my University to defend it. (I had moved in the middle of my program and finished my thesis long distance.)

I have heard people say that they could never work like that. Ten minutes is not enough.  But if I had not done that, I’m sure that my unfinished thesis would be on my hard drive right now, with an unfinished Master’s on my transcript. Ten minutes a day does not seem like a lot of time, but my slow progress was still progress.

Our roommate is in a band.  They have been playing together about two years, but they just recently started getting gigs at local bars.  He said that sometimes it feels like they have not done anything, but when he looks at it, he can see the slow progress they have made.  They slowly got organized as to what they wanted to play, and learned the songs.  Then they started playing at an open mic night at a local bar every now and then.   Then they started recording and added those songs to their band page.  Then they started playing at small gigs that they found out about through friends of friends, they started making friends with other bands, and they started opening for those bands at bars. 

They made fliers for those shows and ordered some cheap-o business cards to hand out.  They got some paying gigs.  Now they’re booked for every weekend the entire month of March and have a few April shows planned.  It took two years to get to this point, and they did not sit down in huge time chunks to plan this.  Slow progress for them was still progress.

This can be applied to your financial life.  If you are in debt or have a big goal, it can seem like you will never get to where you want to be.  How can you pay off that huge $100,000 credit card balance or save for a house in a pricey area if you are barely scraping by?  It is tempting to make a huge massive plan and try to implement it.  That may work for some. 

But if the thought of the Huge Massive Plan is too overwhelming, just do something. Start with anything.  Pick one thing- maybe putting five dollars extra a month to your credit card and saving five dollars a month in a savings account.  Those are very small steps, but those small steps will help you make progress!  Try not to get sucked into the "it won’t make much difference, so why bother?" mentality.  Take a baby step. Those baby steps will lead to bigger and better places, and before you know it, you will be climbing mountains.  Deciding to skip one latte and put that five dollars in a savings account this month may seem so minor, but five years from now, that small step will be so significant to your larger goal.  Don’t forget to remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can with the physical, mental, emotional, and financial resources you have at your disposal this very second.  No matter how small it may be, progress is progress.  You can do it!

Photo by pixie.

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Comments

6 Responses to “Painfully Slow Progress is Still Progress”

  1. pete on February 27th, 2008 5:41 am

    this whole idea can work with just about anything.. have 50 pounds to lose? Just start working it off. If you lose 1 pound a week, you can lose the weight in less than a year! little baby steps add up!

  2. LJ on February 27th, 2008 6:12 am

    Good ideas, baby steps always work, they may take longer, but it can very successful and a lot less overwhelming!

  3. FFB on February 27th, 2008 10:32 am

    Real progress always seems to take time. You’re right, the small steps will lead you very far over time. A marathon isn’t mile one then mile 26; it’s all the single steps you take between. Some are easy and some are excruciating but you push on and eventually you’re looking at the finish line.

    Funny this is, it doesn’t take much time or effort to do a lot of damage. One flat screen tv purchase can put a person in debt. It’s important to remember to keep taking the little steps and not deviate.

    Thanks for the post!

  4. Shanti @ Antishay Ventenne on February 27th, 2008 10:34 am

    Yes! What a great post :) I’ll have to check out her blog…

    This is a great post because it encourages us to do whatever we can, no matter how small. It sounds a lot like snowflaking progress, to me ;)
    The best part is that when we start to see the little bits of progress add up, we take a stronger interest in making progress (hence the order of bills smallest to largest in Dave Ramsey’s baby step two).

  5. Heidi on February 27th, 2008 11:01 am

    Really great post! There are a lot of simple concrete examples in here that I can relate to.

  6. Computer Man on August 20th, 2008 11:21 am

    Good post with some good tips. Slow and steady wins the race!

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