I moved 3,200 pounds by myself

On Saturday, I decided to get rid of a pile of dirt and rocks that had collected over the summer while putting in my yard.

The dump closed at 3:30pm. That night, a hydrologic storm was rolling in. Dirt gets very heavy when it's wet, so I had a deadline.

All I had was a shovel, a rake, a wheelbarrow, and a borrowed trailer.

I shoveled with the strength of 10 She-Hulks. The dark clouds rolling in were pretty good motivation. Finding mice nesting in the pile was even better.

The trailer wasn't big enough to haul everything in one go, so it took three trips to the dump. I'm not great at backing up a trailer, and having to try five times in front of a crowd of highly trained, perfectly formed trailer-backing experts was humbling.

But I kept going.

70% done wasn't good enough. I needed it all gone.

I DID IT. All 3,200 pounds.

I've got bruises and a sore lower back to prove it. A couple of days later, I'm still riding the high and telling everyone within a 10-foot radius about my accomplishment.

Set deadlines. Be firm.

At the risk of sounding like a long, sad LinkedIn post tying a personal story to my career: marketing initiatives get pushed because they're not perfect, product takes priority, or something else feels more urgent.

So the launch gets delayed. A campaign needs one more round of edits. The homepage needs 10 more sets of eyes.

And before you know it, the thing you wanted to ship a month ago is still sitting on your to-do list.

Sometimes there's a good reason to push a deadline. But sometimes we push things just because we can.

There's always another edit, another review, another thing to tweak. And if you're not careful, you'll spend more time making something perfect than getting it in front of people.

Obviously, some things need to be right before they ship. The trick is figuring out what those things are before the deadline arrives.

Marketing will always have more ideas than time. Decide what's getting done, agree on what needs to be true for it to ship, and set a deadline. Then stick to it.

It's surprising what you can get done when pushing it back isn't an option.

And you might learn something new along the way (like how to back up a trailer).