Rituals Outperform Resolutions

What separates a building that gets maintained from one that only gets repaired? Usually it is whether anyone attached a date to the intention. A trustee committee that resolves to stay on top of maintenance has made a wish. A committee that has the gutters cleared and the roof checked every year before the summer rains, booked with the same contractor without anyone needing to raise it, has made a ritual.

The ritual wins because it never asks whether anyone feels like it. In Tzaneen the rains arrive whether or not the trustees had a busy month, and a blocked downpipe does the same damage either way. A resolution has to be decided again every time, and every time there is a good reason to wait. A booking in the diary does not get a vote.

The same goes for a landlord's routine. A fixed habit of checking the geyser and the ceilings in the same month every year catches the small leak before it becomes a ceiling board lying on the floor. The landlord who plans to check when there is time usually finds out about the leak from the tenant, by phone, on a Sunday.