Transformaintenance

I took a poll from a bike advocacy group looking for an evocative catchphrase to pitch the idea of cities repurposing cheap basic municipal maintenance materials to quickly transform how we move-- i.e. positioning cement planters to slow traffic on a school street with chronic speeding problems. 

All their suggestions sucked so I wrote in "transformational maintenance".  

Isn't it funny how we can produce for others what we can't get for ourselves?  As soon as I'd articulated it, I realized I've needed this concept for years.  Everyone knows you can't regain your balance and change directions at the same time.  First balance, then turn.  First stabilize, then stretch.  First sharpen the ax, then chop the wood.  Except that has never worked in my life.  It is an approach that can't work where crisis is chronic.  If your unmet needs lie in complicated layers, the "first, then" approach forces you to be your own saboteur, perpetually pitting your short-term self against your long-term self.

Like a city, I don't have to operate exclusively through major undertakings and dedicated budgets.  Like a city, I can look for new ways of using the resources I already have, so that small shifts in how I go about my immediate self-care produce big, fast results that move me in the directions of my goals.

And then an online friend condensed it to "transformaintenance".  

So now we just need neon green silicone bracelets.