Have you ever found that you actually got more done by doing less?
Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
— Joseph Addison
The Luxury of a Quiet Sunday Morning
A few weeks ago, I decided to luxuriate in Sunday morning laziness which for me translates into simultaneously reading the Sunday paper, watching the Sunday Morning Show on TV while consuming oodles of coffee along with a decadent sweet roll – all while cocooned in my warm cozy bed.
The night before I’d programmed the TV to turn itself on at 6am which is when the Sunday Morning Show usually starts. As soon as it clicked on, I headed downstairs, got my coffee, my treat-for-breakfast and the paper.
Okay, the fantasy goes off track here… Continue reading » The “Yes… Damn Effect” Strikes Again!
What do you do when procrastination is PLAGUING you?
In three of my recent posts I explored various topics surrounding procrastination – Have Fun NOW, The Yes… Damn Effect, and Just Git-R-Done. In this post I will grapple with my own inclination to procrastinate.
A short while back I was suffering from terminal procrastination. I decided at the time to draw myself a motivational picture depicting a reward for finishing. I drew this little caricature of myself in a hammock on a desert island, enjoying the satisfaction of being done with my duties.
— Roy Blumenthal
I, Ellie, have decided that procrastination isn’t going to keep me down. I’m declaring a truce with my To-Do List. I’m going to shift from procrastination to productivity.
I have my ways… For instance, in the past I often tagged my To-Do List with the title: Wish-It-Were-Done. Why? Because one day, when I was resisting doing my expense report, I sighed “Gee I wish this were done!” And that simple thought shifted my emotional state from discouraged to motivated. I subsequently whipped out the expense report in record time. I also had the good sense to recognize that I’d stumbled upon a good idea: rename that darned list to Wish-It-Were-Done-List! It’s time for me to do so again.
Here are some other techniques that have worked for me in the past… Continue reading » Ellie Wishes It Were Done!
Someday is not a day of the week.
— Anonymous
In her posts, Ellie has been beating up on the devil of procrastination. As I’ve been reading what she’s been writing, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of procrastination myself. I’m not so sure procrastination is such a bad guy. Let me tell you why.
First of all, let’s be clear. When we call a behavior “procrastination” we’ve already judged the behavior as less desirable than “gettin’ – R – done.” As a matter of fact, when I went looking for definitions, I found this at en.wiktionary.org: “The act of postponing, delaying or putting off, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.” [emphasis mine]
The real question to me is Continue reading » Productive Procrastination
Have you ever had a problem with procrastination? Do you have any helpful suggestions for curing the problem?
In my last two posts I touched on a couple of ways that we postpone doing things: procrastinating pleasure and agreeing to do something at a future date. In this post I’m going to explore why we procrastinate (and offer a seemingly simple solution) and in my next post I’ll examine how I personally am wrestling with my procrastination quandary.
Sing along with Annie and me. (She can carry a tune. I can’t.)
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’ll do it Tomorrow!
Ok, Ok, depending upon how well you enunciate “I’ll”, I may have paraphrased one vowel too many, but help me out here:
What’s the problem with my I’ll do-it-tomorrow plan?
Well… much as we “love ya Tomorrow,” we apparently mind-blip past the fact that Tomorrow is: “Always a day away!” In fact – it’s not just ALWAYS, it’s also ONLY a day away. How is it we think that what we don’t want to do today, what we can’t bring ourselves to do today, will somehow automagically get done tomorrow? Do we really think that the rotation of the earth from dusk to dawn will miraculously change our inclinations to tackle the dreaded task – whatever that task might be???
Why Not Just “Git-R-Done”??
In many ways, procrastinating just prolongs our misery – the things-not-done weigh heavy on our minds and drag down our energy. So why do we procrastinate??? And how do we stop procrastinating?
Continue reading » Procrastinating – Just Git-R-Done
Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
— Unknown
For the recent holiday weekend I proclaimed myself a four-day-weekend and set about doing a myriad of tasks that used to be either “he or we” projects, never mine alone… I was busy, busy, busy. I was “letting go”.
Letting Go Ain’t for the Faint of Heart
Letting go takes a lot of work and determination. It’s MUCH easier to just let things be. But I knew that moving on, transitioning “from we to me”, required doing “what don’t come easy”… and I, not someone else, needed to do the choosing: keep or let go?
It Was a Close Call
There was a point when I despaired of ever making any decisions, I just couldn’t bear to let go of anything no matter what it was. So how’d I power through? Continue reading » Busy, Busy Days on the Way to Letting Go
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