Friday I finally tackled an overdue mound of laundry. I was reminded that not only is procrastination not going to help me get to where I need to go, it most often is a huge time waste. My laundry experience is a case in point. Pup has lots of hair, hair that doesn't really shed, but just sort of rubs or falls of his body and accumulates in fine pieces everywhere he goes. It floats in the air, and lands. Slowly getting rid of all carpeted floors is my goal as we replace flooring as it is so much easier to sweep or Swifter hard surfaces and keep the hair at bay. I let the laundry accumulate too long, and so much of it has bits of dog hair on it, and will need to be damp rinsed and dried again. What a time waste!
Friday night when we got home form the concert, I should have soaked the crock immediately so that I could quickly clean and put away Saturday morning. Nope, set it down on the counter, and woke to a dried mess. I was running late to get to my aunts memorial service, so there is sat soaking, waiting for me Saturday afternoon. I needed the crock pot for pork chops I was making for dinner. On a sunny perfect Saturday afternoon, I was spending an extra 10 minute sin the house scrubbing a crock. What's 10 minutes? In my life, 10 minutes here, and 10 minutes there makes the difference between being stressed, and being able to have a couple extra sips of coffee in the morning, or a glass of wine at night, a chat on the phone with a friend, or a lingering walk with the pup. I've been trying to think of a self imposed challenge for April. Reduce procrastination seems to be a good one. I'm not sure how to track it. I thought maybe I would track my lost time, and calculate a lost minute per day. Of course, ideally I would need to continue this challenge so I can see if I am making progress over time. To start, I am down 10 minutes of time for April 1, so a daily average of 10 minutes per day lost due to procrastination. Now, deferring all tasks is not procrastination, but prioritizing, but waiting on a task that will just take more time later is pretty silly. Yet, I am a regular offender. Anyone have any ideas on how you keep yourself motivated to finish a task, rather than defer it to later?
Oh I love this anti-procrastination challenge. Sign me up since I am my own worst enemy when it comes to time.
ReplyDeleteI can easily be distracted or rationalize. Time to stop though.
DeleteI try really hard to avoid procrastination for the reasons you describe. Not only do I eventually have to do the work.. . often I have to do more because of putting it off!
ReplyDeleteThat is my ecperience,creating more work for myself. It is one of my worst habits.
DeleteI have turned procrastination into a higher art form...it is one of my greatest skills and I fine tune it on a daily basis. If I call it "displacement activity" it somehow sounds a little less harsh ;-)
ReplyDeleteArilx