I am a firm believer in costumes. Specifically, the correct costume for the correct task at hand. Most days will find me in Carhaart or Bjornklader jeans, Carhaart work shirt, Danner leather boots - as I am spending the day fixing or building things. When I am cleaning the house, you will find me in soft soled shoes or slippers and a t-shirt. When I am out shopping, the good clothes come out, including a vest with lots of pockets to hold all the stuff you need when venturing outside. When I am working on my vehicles, I will be in my vintage Big Mac coveralls - they are never used for anything except cars. When I worked from home, I always dressed like I was going to the office. I think the correct costume helps make the task “succeed” - lowers the friction point of the task at hand.
Case in point: The pilot light in our furnace was not lit on Sunday morning. I was able to get it lit to take the chill off the house, but when the furnace shut off, the pilot died. Now Sunday is my shopping and cleaning day, so the repair had to wait until I got back from shopping. I thought the pilot light job would be easy - a couple of years ago I had the same thing happen, and a quick replacement of the pilot light assembly was all it took (I keep spares). So I changed from my shopping into my cleaning clothes, had lunch, grabbed a couple of tools from the workshop and proceeded to replace the pilot assembly.
Three hours later, I still had not gotten the furnace to run reliably - obviously, it was more than the pilot assembly, and my skills seemed lacking - I was getting nowhere. I surmised it was a bad gas valve (again, I have spares), and resolved to fix it the next day.
After breakfast, I donned the “correct” costume (work clothes and work boots), took apart the furnace (again), and took the parts OUTSIDE to the workshop (where the tools live), replaced the gas valve and had the entire thing reassembled, tested, and cleaned up in about an hour.
I firmly believe that if I has started on Sunday with the correct costume, NOT trying to fix this laying on the floor of the dining room (where the furnace lives), I would have had it correctly diagnosed and repaired in about 2 hours - tops.
The right costume for the right job - point proved.