Shoveling!

1. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING TO SHOVEL. This is just absolutely the most important thing. If you wait until the next morning, there’s a good chance you’ll be facing dense, packed-down snow with an ice glaze. I don’t want to put on my boots and go outside at 9 pm either, but it is better this way.

2. Shovel early and often. There are two people in the world— the people who think that it would be easier to wait until the snow stops to shovel so then you just shovel once, and the people who want to be able to shovel by sliding their shovel along the ground instead of heaving huge shovelfuls of snow over their shoulder. I am of the latter camp. This is more a matter of personal preference (I doubt my older brother is an early-and-often shoveler, for example, being an economist and former lacrosse player), but I want you to consider it.

3. Don’t walk or drive over snow that you’re about to shovel. You know how when you’re mopping, you mop in such a way that you don’t have to tromp over the wet freshly mopped area? Same deal with shoveling. It’s easier if it’s not all packed down.

4. On something like a driveway, shovel from the middle to the edges. If you start at the edge, then you have to get a whole bunch of snow over a section that you’ve already cleared. I think the larger tip here is to consider where the snow is going to go.

5. Dress in layers. I know, it’s super cold out! But shoveling is remarkably aerobic. Your hands, if like mine, will go from warm, to super cold, and then all the way back to warm and then slightly past warm. The body is an amazing thing.

6. Yes, the people next door are supposed to fucking shovel like decent human beings so we don’t break our necks and get snow in our boots. If they are not going to shovel and you are going to be, say, walking past their house or building three to four times a day with your dog and hating them the entire time, especially once things melt a little and then ice up, it may be easier to just shovel it yourself now that you’re out there. No, life isn’t fair.

7. Speaking of being a decent human being, it’s really nice to shovel the sidewalk wide enough so that people with disabilities don’t have to travel in the middle of the street.

8. If someone else is shoveling with you, you are not allowed to tell them how to shovel. Even if they’re walking all over the part they’re about to shovel. Even if they shoveled the edge first and now have to go back over it after.

9. You’re right, people with snow-blowers are cheating.

10. You have no idea how much snow you have all over you. Shake it out first before you go instead. Especially the hood of your jacket.