If you have a small area to rake, raking is not bad and it's good exercise. I have about 3/4 acre of lawn and mow it with a tractor and in the fall I use the tractor to pick up the leaves. I use a blower on the drive way, in beds and under shrubs and blow it all onto the lawn. This takes less than a day to do, if I had to rake all of that it would take a weekend plus. Power equipment is noisy but you can't beat the convenience. I also do my gutters with a blower.