Why not do it now?

The stone in your shoe doesn't care when you take it out - now or later. - Marc Flint

I've been sleeping better since yesterday. Before that, I used to wake up at least once a week to the sound of muffled noises coming from the flat next to my bedroom just before midnight - as if a heavy drawer was being pulled open with a swing.

The problem is that our house is built around an inner courtyard, so there are different staircases. I didn't know who lived in the other staircase behind my flat. Every time I woke up to the noise, I thought: „I want to go there, find out and ask the neighbours to be quieter from 10.30 pm.“

A few days ago I managed it, wrote a note, went to the flat where I thought the suspects were and put it on the door. A woman rang yesterday. She couldn't really imagine that it had come from them. There was just a cupboard in the hallway and they were actually quiet...“ Her husband came up with the idea of doing the knock test...and lo and behold...it was obvious - sound gets through just fine.

It turned out that they often cleaned out the litter tray in the cupboard late at night. As the cupboard is right next to the thin plasterboard wall where my bed is, I could hear it all. And woke up from it.

The solution: Now they no longer clean the litter tray after 22.00.

Why not right away? Why did I only wait two years?

The first step towards a solution was to write myself a note (sometime after midnight): Tackle problem...

It was then on my desk with my to-do lists.

And then it was my turn. Quite simple, actually.

That reminds me: it's been bothering me for a few years now that the green right-turn arrow is missing on a street corner that I often pass. And that on another corner the house numbers, which help with orientation in Berlin, are wrong.

At least I've now written the to-do list. And I've actually already called the repair service for the toilet flush, which hasn't been working properly for weeks.