Trying to summon the motivation

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Keeping work area clean, tools and parts organized and easy to find helps me feel a lot better when I step in the garage to get something done. When I hit unexpected problems, always happens, I stop, clean the shop, put tools in there place, get rid of clutter, sweep the floor, then walk away. Then come back later well rested and then good things start to happen.

I like to create a well defined scope of a near term achievable goal and get that done. Do that one at a time and you see progress over time. Get well rested, get out there, but dont be out working too long. The car projects are marathons paced em out dont go hog wild in any given session.

Other thing I learned the hard way is when your tired the brain is in a down graded mode and more mistakes will be made then stuff gets messed up creating more work more money. Monitor yourself dont be thrashing around burning out messing stuff up.
 
mopowers said:
Damn Greg! How'd the Mopar stable fare? Looks like they were spared? Give me a holler if you ever need a hand with that kind of stuff. I wouldn't mind lending a hand. That's a pain in the *** for one person.
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HELL yeah it is, Mary helps but a second strong man would have really helped. I hate to ask for it though, I know that weekends are the times that people with jobs get to do fun things. Nobody wants to do this sort of thing for fun.
I'm not on a tight schedule though. I'm only working on it 4-5 hours a day.
The cars didn't get hurt. I've had limbs fall in several areas over the years and none of them have fallen on the cars.
 
Kern Dog said:
How is THIS for motivation?

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Last week we had a windy storm.
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What a mess. Trees fell and blocked access to part of the back yard.

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Chop chop.

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I have this beast to haul off the fallen.

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Good times.
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It's amazing how some **** moves to the top of the list FAST. No problems getting motivated here when my basement flooded :)
 
I thank you all. As I was reading through this thread yesterday I said to myself "self, you have all the parts to put a mechanical fuel pump on the 5.9 Magnum that you've been putting off". So, today I got out the garage and tore into it.

The funny thing is, once I got started I didn't want to stop!! I even forgot to turn on some tunes for a couple of hours.

I was sorts dreding the car being down for a week since I only have weekends to work on it cause I'm working for the man too much.

But I'll be back on the road tomorrow with a cam snout extension, a mechanical fuel pump, a new FlowKooler water pump, and a new harmonic balancer.

Like a member said above...getting started is sometimes the hardest part.

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Kern Dog said:
HELL yeah it is, Mary helps but a second strong man would have really helped. I hate to ask for it though, I know that weekends are the times that people with jobs get to do fun things. Nobody wants to do this sort of thing for fun.
I'm not on a tight schedule though. I'm only working on it 4-5 hours a day.
The cars didn't get hurt. I've had limbs fall in several areas over the years and none of them have fallen on the cars.
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Well, the offer's there. I don't mind at all. I hate asking for help too, so I get it. I actually like doing manual labor though. It's the kind of work that makes you feel good afterwards. You got the right idea though - slowly chipping away will get it done eventually. I'm glad the cars didn't get smashed!
 
halfafish said:
Part of the problem is that I have too many projects going. I got started on three different cars but they are all half done.

Something helpful has been to STOP BUYING CARS, STUPID. Even if it's a good deal or a smoking deal. Enough is enough. Time to get what I have running and enjoy driving them, instead acquiring them and letting them sit.
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You sound like you could be my dad. Too many projects, all of them half to 3/4 done. In the 25 years we've lived in Wisconsin he's finished 3 projects. 2 roofs and my grandfather's 57 MGA. No other project that he's started has been finished, and he's still talking about buying another car. We lived in Spokane for 5 years and in that time he finished 2 cars and started a 3rd before having to sell it when we moved back here. It's pretty frustrating to watch.

My issue is that as soon as I finally got a job that would allow me to start making headway on my hobbies I decided to get married, buy a house, make a terrible financial decision regarding my dream sedan (G8 GT that I've talked about before) , and have 2 girls all in the span of 5 years. Soooo, I have 0 time to do anything unless I demand time to do it. The only reason I have a usable motorcycle is because my wife vastly prefers my suv to her hatchback and I prefer literally anything over an suv/truck. So getting the couple things on it fixed so I could safely ride it to work was an easy discussion even with the slightly higher expense. But the Cuda has been sitting for 6 years now, my other bike that I vastly prefer over the running one is covered up on a trailer, wrecked possibly forever, and I'm working as much ot as possible to pay down some debt incurred from the G8 and just life in general. It's all just so draining that when I do get a chance to sit down, like right now after my ot shift tonight, I really don't want to do anything. Even playing video games is a chore. The worst part is I really like my job and it pays well. But if I didn't have to work I'd be able to enjoy more things like my kids and hobbies. It just sucks and winter doesn't help.
 
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It must be pretty common for people to get almost done with a project then get distracted and lured into starting another one.
My 67 Dart....

67 R.jpg


It looks like crap with faded paint and overall shabby appearance but I love it. I love driving it on dirt roads where I can have a blast throwing dirt and gravel everywhere and not worrying about paint damage. It is done as far as I am concerned.

Jigsaw....

JF 7.JPG


...Looks as bad as the Dart but will be painted and shiny one day. I named it Jigsaw because as of now, it looks like Jigsaw puzzle with pieces from different puzzles since it is a car rebuilt with parts from many different cars.
 
BrianT said:
I have a couple of friends who like to come to my house and hang out in the garage and “help” with my projects. One in particular likes to stay after me and remind me that spring is coming. We always have a good time listening to music and enjoying a few cold beers. It reminds me of the old days. Without their prodding I would never get anything done.
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Yeah I used to be the guy who went to my buddy's house and asked where they were at on whatever project they were working on. Id get looking at it and before we knew it we were all working on their stuff. I've never had that luxury to have others do the same over here. I mean sometimes it would be a question about how to do one certain part of a project and then it was "well let's go look" and we'd start moving things around to uncover that's section, or digging for parts "we have this, not sure how it goes or if it's the right one"
 
Kern Dog said:
How is THIS for motivation?

View attachment 1716205402


Last week we had a windy storm.
View attachment 1716205403

View attachment 1716205408

What a mess. Trees fell and blocked access to part of the back yard.

View attachment 1716205409

View attachment 1716205410

Chop chop.

View attachment 1716205411


I have this beast to haul off the fallen.

View attachment 1716205412

Good times.
Click to expand...
Yup fun stuff! At least I get paid to do this. Thats me standing at the base of that tree.

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I've got 2 younger children who are in sports 5 days a week. When I get a day with nothing on the calendar I tell myself I will get a ton of stuff done, but then that day comes and I struggle to get moving and actually start something. My car is in pieces, and doesn't need much time to be put back together, but the garage is cold, and everything is greasy. Sad excuse to not work on it, but after 5 days a week of leaving the house at 5:30am and not returning till 8pm, sure makes it hard to want to do anything but relax on the random 'day off' that I get
 
This thread has helped me, this weekend at least! Wireless charger in the truck and course of block done for the planter yesterday, cleaned out the garage a bit where I could ponder/finish up getting excess material off at least one of the new frame rails today!!!

Thanks to OP and everyone just throwing *something* out there!
 
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