The maintenance nobody claps for

The tasks that prevent disasters never feel urgent, and when they work nothing happens. That is a terrible feedback loop for a human being.

What helped was giving them a fixed slot instead of a decision. Friday morning is updates and backup checks. Sunday is pilates. Neither is negotiated at the moment it is due, because at that moment I always have a reason not to.

Almost every catastrophe I have been called into was preventable by something dull that someone kept meaning to do.