sure about exactly what they mean don’t sweat it, we’ve got your back. There was a time when we didn’t understand their significance either. We’ve learned and we'll share. 
Consider this an open invitation to visit our 
Maintain
Maintenance is money in the bank; it’s that simple.
It’s the most important part of being a Dirty Shirt. If you want to keep your money from leaving your hands, maintaining your stuff will help you do that.
Not The Car Again
The car will break, they all do. The question is would it be better to control this absolute 
certainty or throw it into the wind and let things sort themselves out? Ignoring maintenance is, in fact, a strategy, but it’s not the best strategy and we want to improve our surroundings according to our timetables. Performing a repair that was uncovered during maintenance and before it breaks is an event. When something breaks, that is a problem. There’s a difference. In one instance you control the situation, in the other, it controls you.
Other than pulling down a big salary or investing in some stock that rockets upward in value, we can think of no better way to accumulate wealth than by maintaining your personal possessions.
I Talk About What Didn't Happen All Of The Time
One of the problems with justifying these money-savings statements is that it’s hard to place a dollar figure on something that doesn’t go wrong because you’ve maintained it. People don’t’ normally go to work, bust a cabbage-patch move and start telling their coworkers about all of the things in their lives that didn’t break today because they performed maintenance.
I Tell Them All Kinds of Unbelievable Things
You can’t tell them you spent $100 on maintenance yesterday and banked a grand today because of it. It doesn’t work that way. The maintenance pay-off is more subtle than that.
A Mind-Set, I Want One
We talk about mind-set quite a bit on this site; the way you think about things and how you approach problems. We talk about thinking things through and how by doing that you’ll come up with a better result or more creative solutions.
Maintenance is the same thing, it’s a mindset. For some people it’s almost a religion. They believe in maintenance so much that they’re always fixing something that isn’t broken. You can’t help but ask the question, why would they do that? We’ll get back to that question.
My Chest Hurts Now
Money may not be the only motivator. For some things you just need them to work or do the job they’re designed to do every single time you use them. You need them to work the way they’re supposed to, every time, with no exceptions. A pace-maker needs to work every single time it sets the pace of a person’s heart. Pace-makers are replaced at intervals to make sure they keep working. They’re maintained by doctors and the people that use them. Maintenance is a strategy and the strategy for pace-makers is to replace them at intervals.
Who You Call'n Flaky?
If you take a shower you are performing maintenance. You know that if you don’t your lack of a maintenance mindset regarding showers will result in a funky person. You shower to minimize the funk-factor. Besides being offensive to others, if you don’t shower, most everyone is aware of a whole bunch of other problems that go along with being skuzzy: Bugs, flakes, smell, sores, germs, social ridicule, and so on.
Dust – It's What's For Breakfast
Over in the Fix and Diagnose portion of Dirty Shirt we’ve demonstrated that everyone 
and all of our material possessions will eventually turn to dust. We maintain things to prevent our things from turning to dust and letting us down when we need them most. If you want something to work for you rather than against you, you need to maintain it. If you don’t want to continually spend money replacing things that weren’t properly maintained, you will pay for that. Your money will leave your hands over and over again.
I Prefer Multiple-Choice Questions Please
So, in order for someone to be motivated to maintain something, the “thing” has to have some sort of perceived value to them. If it has little or no value, why would you maintain it?
Can I Buy One Of These Guys? It's Just Easier
Let’s get back to the people who we view as being almost religious about maintenance. They are the way they are because they see things this way:
- They spend money on maintenance to save money overall.
- They need something to work for them rather than against them when they need it most.
- The items they maintain have a real or perceived value to them.
- They’re control freaks. They don’t like being left in a lurch when things quit working. They hate it when that happens.
- Pride of ownership. They own it and that sole reason is enough to justify taking care of it.
I Did Time At Folsom
Maintenance takes time and money. There’s no question about that. Maintenance is also about being organized. By performing maintenance, you’re trying to get out ahead of a problem before it actually happens. You’re fortune telling or gambling in a way. You’re trying to predict an outcome and taking a maintenance action to control the outcome. If you have one thing that needs to be maintained that’s not so bad; it’s just one thing. Most of us have dozens of things that need to be maintained causing things to get a little more interesting. How do you keep up with all of it?
Give It To Me, I Can Handle The Truth
Here are a number of things we’ve observed about the people we know who are good at maintaining things:
They’re organized people to begin with. They do a good job keeping up with just about everything in their lives and they have an ability to prioritize things. They know what step 1 is when there’s a bunch of steps to choose from.
My Schedule Is, Well…Open
Many of the things they maintain came with a maintenance schedule that was recommended by the manufacturer. They read the documentation and keep the maintenance schedule in mind. They usually have a system that they follow to stay on top of maintenance (spreadsheet, calendar, sticky notes, etc.) that indicates when maintenance intervals are coming due.
Who Is Max And Where Did You Put Him?
If there is no maintenance schedule that came with the item, they make up their own maintenance plan. They know how often the device is used and under what kinds of conditions. If they run the item under max load in bad conditions they perform maintenance more often.
Seriously, Anybody Got A Deck Of Cards?
If they find themselves without much going on and life is rolling along, they’ll pick up a couple of things and shine them up, tighten screws, add a dab of oil here and there and sharpen a blade or two. It’s a less formal way of performing maintenance, but it adds up to a longer life for a lot of things.
Records Means Audit, No Records, No Audit
They keep records of when and what kind of maintenance was performed. Again, this could be a spreadsheet, a calendar, a note pad or a binder. There’s a written component to what they’re doing so they can reference it and make decisions.
I’d Recommend A Weed Eater
If they use an item and decide it’s performing but not performing well, they make a note and take action to rectify the problem later (sharpen the blade, research better weed control or apply it more often, fill tires with air more often, etc).
Shelves? We Have Piles
If they’re about to use an item that’s been on the shelf for awhile and they’re planning on putting it to use, they pull it down and take a look. Stuff ages by just sitting on a shelf. It’s turning into dust without even being touched. Flexible bits and pieces become stiff and crack, dirt accumulates, lubrication dries up, parts rust, bugs invade, and shiny becomes dull.
Shitter's Full Again
If an item breaks and must be fixed, they question whether or not maintenance would have prevented the failure. If the answer is yes, they adjust maintenance intervals to prevent future failures.
Cleaners? You're Kidding Right?
They spend money on tools, cleaners and other helpers that make 
maintenance easier. The act of maintenance isn’t exactly sexy, so they buy things to make the job more enjoyable and that create a better and faster end result. In a way, that’s a good way to look at most things. If it’s an unpleasant job buy things that will make it easier so you don’t procrastinate so much when it needs attention.
Thanks, Preciate It
That just about covers it for the things we appreciate about people who are good at maintenance and possess a maintenance mind-set. We could go on and on about this topic but we’ll leave it as is for now. If something fails before you get a chance to perform maintenance we’d recommend you take a trip to the Fix or Diagnose pages on the site. Something broke and now you’ve got a different problem to solve.