Not nearly as annoying to others as I am to myself

[Anonymous]

Why do I always have to wait until the last minute to do things? Example: I’ve arranged for a truck to come and take away all my clutter tomorrow. I’ve been working at home for the past two days with the intention of doing things to prepare for Saturday in between doing work things. I’ve done nothing but work things and looking at stuff on the internet.

Tonight, around 10pm, I will suddenly feel motivated to do what I need to to and I’ll end up staying up working full steam until 4am. Then I’ll have to try and sleep for a couple of hours because I’ll need to get up before noon to finish up and wait for the truck to arrive. Then I’ll sleep all afternoon and be wide awake on Saturday night and my sleep schedule will once again be on a collision course for Monday morning.

What is it about having a definite deadline only a few hours away that makes me work harder when it’s something I’ve known I’ve needed to do for two days? Surely it’s better to work less and stretch it over a longer period of time than to get stressed out because I’m running out of time as I head toward the deadline.

I really drive myself nuts. Maybe I can get some stuff done now, since I got this off my chest.

Writing it here is like giving myself a good talking to. If I don’t do it, I’m going to shake myself really hard and maybe smack myself across the face.

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[Anonymous]

I’m in the beginning stages of developing a new system. The key to it is to break tasks down as small as possible. 15-minutes, if possible. Instead of having a task that says “Design Website” it might be a multitude of tasks such as, “image for shopping page” and “modify CSS for sidebar.”

The idea is to then gather these tasks into something like a “job jar.” Then I can pull one out, and either do it or put it back in and choose another.

I believe that we have certain appetites that we generate energy to fill and the trick is to come up with more productive substitutes for the normal ways we feed that energy (such as surfing the internet, etc.). Identify the need, find a substitute and hopefully, the need gets fed – and you’re a little farther along than you were before.

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[Anonymous]

I do break things down into smaller parts when I’m doing something I enjoy doing. I can be super-organized when I’m hyper-focused. It’s when I have to do something I don’t really want to be doing that I have the procrastination problem.

My copy of Adobe InDesign CS5 just arrived and I am dying to play with it instead of going through that mountain of old clothes in the other room. Where is that housekeeper? Oh yeah, I don’t have one.

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