What are you putting off? What bad things would happen if you stopped making excuses and tackled something today?
(Would you do it wrong? Would you fail to meet expectations? Would you have to do it even better next time?)
I feel like I am constantly putting things off. I work well under pressure. In college, I always felt like I couldn't start a paper or project until it was close to due because it wouldn't turn out as good as if I waited until I had the pressure to finish it. These days, things I am procrastinating doing include:
*The books for my store (blech).
*Sewing 3 Christmas presents-even though I realize sewing always takes me 10 times longer than I think it will and Christmas is only 8 days away. Aaaaand, we leave town in 5 days. Yikes.
*Planting our garden in the backyard.
*Painting Lincoln's bathroom (I started this project almost 2 years ago...the walls still have the test paint on them :s)
*Taking the huge piles of clothes and toys in our bedroom to Goodwill or consignment stores.
*Packing for our trip.
*Painting my sewing desk.
*Sorting through all my back issues of Bon Appetit and Food & Wine.
That probably grazes the surface of my forever to-do list. The hardest part for me is picking a starting point. Having a huge list like that is so overwhelming that it is easy to just say "forget it!" and do something else instead (why hello there four batches of cupcakes and a pan of blueberry muffins in one week...). Lucas will tell you that my list making gets out of control. When he asks me what I want to get done on any given weekend, you can usually count on me to list at least 5 projects that could easily take 2 days a piece. He's pretty good about talking me down from doing too much...
I recently made myself a chore chart to help with my procrastination against cleaning the house. It has been in effect for two weeks now, and I have to say, I LOVE it. Rather than a huge list of things to accomplish during the week, I have 2-3 chores a day that I do. For example, on Fridays I wash the towels and sweep and vacuum the floors. That's it. Sure, there are things that do have to get done daily (dishes, cooking, etc.), but by having the lists with only 2-3 things daily I don't get overwhelmed by the "where do I start? should I clean our room? the bathroom? the kitchen? maybe i'll just make some cookies...".
This weekend I am going to tackle the sewing. That is my only goal. I think it is pretty good attempt at not overdoing it, but we'll see. There ARE three projects, after all...
I am just like you! Work so much better under pressure! It's so hard when you don't have that pressure, or at least when you're not graded on it, haha.
ReplyDeleteAnd just so you know, I found it so comforting to be in your home that actually felt like a home to me. It's very lived in, not perfectly clean, and I find that to be refreshing and comforting. Sometimes I have these ideals of how things *should* be instead of accepting them as they are.