Beautiful Day!

I'm grateful for the encouragement I received in my efforts to stop procrastinating. What a wonderful world it is when we can get some assistance from people we don't know but who do care. I found that list-making is helpful for me. And I found that it's important that my list isn't too long or I might tend to abandon it before it's all crossed off.

I also found out that for the list making to avoid procrastination technique to work, you have to actually make a list. That's where my endeavor failed me for the last two days. Now to get back on track, I WILL make some kind of list every day! We'll see how that works out.

The weather was beautiful today. When it's nice out, I tend to encounter more of my customers as I go about my appointed rounds. I love a chance to say hello to people, but it's also important that I keep moving. That's why today, as I spoke to one of my customers, I kept moving. I walked as I looked back and that explains why I walked into the big, giant rose bush. And, it being a rose bush, explains why it so deftly removed my baseball cap and grabbed by clothes.

I can deal with all this, truly. I've had lots more troublesome things happen. But why did I have to keep talking as I walked backwards? That caused my customer and his friend to keep looking at me so they witnessed the whole unfortunate series of occurrences. My customer was very solicitous though. He said, "Hey! Watch out for my rose bush!" It didn't seem to matter to him that my head was now perched in the middle of it as my body frantically tried to retrieve it. He just didn't want me to hurt his giant rose bush.

It's okay though. I still enjoy a beautiful day and a chance to interact with my customers. And, if I can be entertaining, well then it's all the better.

Not Procrastinating Now

So yesterday I talked about procrastinating and more to the point, begged somebody to tell me why I procrastinate. I didn't get so many answers to my question other than my sweet granddaughter saying that it must run in the family. And I think there's something to that.

In my family there were 4 kids - two girls - two boys. The oldest, a boy and the third child, a girl are hard working, industrious, penny pinching I mean thrifty, wonderful people. The 2nd, a girl (me) and the 4th, a boy are more.....relaxed. We're not real wise with our money. If we see something we want and we have the money we buy it. If there's yard work to do but we get a chance to go fishing, we're out there reeling 'em in. And if there's something on our "to do" list that's hard to get to...we tend to not get to it. In other words, we're procrastinators.

I thought about it while I worked today and all I could come up with was that maybe we procrastinators have a hard time visualizing the future. We live in the now.

An article I read about happiness said something like "happiness is not what you're doing right now. Happiness occurs when you look back and feel you've accomplished something". And I think that's true. So to be happy is to not be a procrastinator. I'm happy; but I think I could be happier and here is the formula as I see it.

Make a list and work hard to accomplish what's on that list every day. It doesn't have to be a long, lofty, evolved list. Just a little something that when finished will feel like an accomplishment. And when I finish my accomplishment(s), I can use the rest of my time for blog reading and picture editing.

So now I feel like I can talk the talk; but we'll have to see if I can walk the walk. I have a little list, that started with writing this post. Tomorrow I'll let you know how far I got

And in the meantime, does anybody have any other ideas or suggestions? I'd love to hear what you do to keep yourself motivated.

Why Do I Procrastinate?

A few years ago (I'm not saying how many) my dentist finished the work that was needed in my mouth. But he warned me. "If you start getting a deep dull ache above this tooth, come and see me because it will have to come out." So I did. That is I did get a deep dull ache...more intense all the time. And pain in my ear. And a bump on my gum above that tooth. Now after the visit where I got the warning, I continued my good mouth care. I got my teeth cleaned every six months, flossed and brushed regularly and felt good about myself. But once that deep, dull ache occurred, I added another facet to my regimen. I told myself that I had to make an appointment to see my dentist today...or when I'm off tomorrow....or as soon as the holidays are over or .... well, you get it. I procrastinated. I meant to do it. Really meant to. It was always on my mental "to do" list. But it never appeared on my mental "done" list.

Today it's on my "done" list. I went in, was put to sleep, and got two teeth pulled within a very short period of time. I'm home. I'm alive. And I'm relieved.

But I really want to know. What makes a procrastinator. We're not happy being procrastinators but still we are. I believe there's a certain psyche involved...a faulty way of thinking...or maybe a laziness. Maybe we're unrealistic about time and we can't see it as it slips away at ever increasing speeds. Or do we get stuck in the "now". Reading blogs, editing family pictures, or worst of all playing solitaire on the computer. And then on the way to work tomorrow we realize that we never did the thing that would have made us feel so much better in the long run. How could we have not done the most important thing??!!

It's such a mystery to me. Seriously. Can someone please tell me. Why do I procrastinate?