Day 27 – What are the Pros and Cons of Procrastination?

note: this is part of #bloganuary where each day in the month of January, there is a prompt that we can write on.

My routine in the morning is to sit with Dawn and enjoy our coffee. We play Wordle with two of our kids and post the results. We talk about the birds, play with the cats, and then we are off to work. I try not to open my email on my phone. I have been working to separate work from pleasure and emails are usually “work” related. However, I look forward to the prompt of the day and so I make an exception for just that one email.

This morning I looked at it, closed my phone with intent and tossed it in the chair. Seriously, this is a detailed topic. I asked Dawn, “am I supposed to write a medical journal entry”? She laughed and said that perhaps they were looking for information for a dissertation.

Look, this is a really broad subject, but I will go there, I am a procrastinator. I have been for a very long time. Why? Well for large projects, it is because I overthink everything that I do and undervalue my ability to do it well.

“Oh look, there is a project that I think I can take on”.

Next thought, “what are all the ways that I can mess this up?”.

Then “what would a professional be doing?”.

By the time I am done with all of the questioning, it has been days, weeks, years and I have second guessed myself so much that even Dawn has crossed it off her “honey do” list. UGH. It is literally exhausting the way my brain works.

For everyday tasks however, it looks like this:

I start to do the dishes, leads to I need to take out the recycles, leads to I should take a few minutes to shovel the walk, leads me to go back in the house to warm my hands in the soapy water that is now lukewarm as it has been an hour since I started washing dishes.

Wait, is that a squirrel in the tree, wait, what was I thinking again?

I know that many of you can feel my pain.

The Pros and Cons

of my “mental” process

One of the pros, maybe the only pro for the larger projects, is that because it takes so long for me to analyze every possibility of failure, when I do get down to working on it, it usually turns out top notch. This past year, I made two high quality pieces of furniture for our grandchildren, a memorial flag case for Dawn’s dad, and we made ornaments for the grandchildren for Christmas. However, the con is that each project takes so long to complete that a ton of other projects have cropped up as well and I will never get to the end.

As for the day to day procrastination, for me, the biggest reason is that my brain wants to be in the future or in the past. This means, for me, that instead of taking and making the time to complete a project in the present, there is always something that I did not do or something that I will need to do, that interrupts my focus as illustrated above. Something simple like the dishes leads to five other things and I never finish the dishes.

While I have posted about my commitment to publish here each day of January, and to read one book a month. My biggest and scariest commitment is to:

finish… one…thing…at…a …time.

That also means not over committing, leaving time for errors, and slowing down.

And here is something we do not provide time for – taking a few moments to appreciate the work that we did instead of mindlessly moving to the next task. I come from a family of over-committers. We are always filling every moment of every day with something. We always think there is time for just one more item. Well, I have had enough. This year, I have committed to leaving time to complete projects with leeway for whatever, including a few minutes to admire my work. Perhaps, if I finish really early, instead of moving to the next one, I take a nap. After reading their posts, I believe that is what my friend Janet and her friend Sarah would suggest. Thanks ladies. HAHA

Speaking of commitment, tonight, Dawn and I have committed to going to our youngest daughter’s house where she and her husband are hosting homemade fondue with wine. And since Dawn is my editor, and she is tough, I have to finish this and get it to her early. Honestly, she is the nicest, most caring, and loving woman and friend that I could ever have. But, the last thing I want to do is make her late for cheese fondue and drinks on a Friday. Seriously, lasers will shoot out of her eyes and pierce my soul. And if I have to drive fast to get there; well, those who follow my blog know how that will go. It is just better if I peace out now.

It is close to 5 o’clock here on the east coast. The work bell is going to ring and we are out of here to get our grub on. There is no procrastinating on this day.

May y’all be happy, healthy, and safe.

t.t.