Smart mowing saves time and effort

• 1). Choose the right cutting mode. One of the most time-consuming parts of mowing the lawn is having to empty the grass-catcher bag many times. The alternative to mowing in the bagging mode is to either discharge clippings out the side or mulch them so they stay on the lawn. But you aren't supposed to mulch when the grass gets really high. So side-discharge is the best of the three modes for most situations.
  
  
• 2). Keep it neat. Side-discharge can leave wide swaths of lawn with heavy mats of clippings. Left there, those clippings can kill the grass underneath; at the least, they look awful. So you need a strategy to minimize the clippings mess.
  
  
• 3). Make a figure-8. Start cutting around the perimeter of the lawn, but instead of staying on the outside, go up the middle. Since most mowers discharge clippings out the right side, you want to mow clockwise, to shoot the clippings toward the middle.
  
  
• 4). Widen the middle. At the top of the middle you've mowed, turn around and mow in the opposite direction, shooting clippings toward the other side of the figure 8.
  
  
• 5). Mow the perimeter. Now that you have a two-swath-wide cut path in the middle, finish mowing around the outside, spiraling in toward the center.
  
  
• 6). Collect the clippings. At the end of your spiraling, you'll have blown the clippings into the center. Instead of blowing them over both sides of the figure 8, they'll be confined to the middle. With just one row of clippings to collect, it's much easier to attach the grass bag and vacuum up those clippings. You've cut your bag-emptying to a fraction of what it would have been, and you wind up with a neat lawn.