#23 – …I’ll do it later

It took me an hour to get to this sentence.

I showered, messaged my partner, checked the Olympics, browsed Spotify and saw Logic dropped a new album (so far it’s not bad).

Then I opened a beer and I chipped my tooth on the glass bottle.

My fellow procrastinators, you know my pain (though not the toothache hopefully). You’ve got a full to-do list and you’ll do literally anything else. The things on your list become as repulsive as marzipan in any dessert or pineapple on pizza.

Procrastinating is fun at first, but becomes guilt-ridden and torturous. As the deadline nears, I start fuming at myself for not having done it sooner.

I’ve been trying though. In the blog, I keep myself accountable to posting weekly by having it in my calendar; and I end each blog with the title of next week’s topic so I know what to write about.

Creating structure, deadlines and accountability around tasks means that when you do leave it last minute, there’s a little bit less to do.

But what about other things? I want to exercise, learn a second language, build a spice rack. I keep putting them off. With no deadline or accountability, these plans lie deserted somewhere between idea and reality.

It’s those tasks without deadlines that we’re all a little guilty of procrastinating on. It’s about digging into why the task is so abominable. Are you low-energy? Is the task boring? Is it intimidating and requires you to step outside your comfort zone? Is it just really hard and needs to be broken down into digestible chunks?

If I had all the answers, I wouldn’t have just watched The Office between this paragraph and the last one. This one’s a little beyond me, but the people at TIME have some great tips.

Anyway I need to call a dentist about my tooth. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow (I promise).

Next week: The Fast & The Curious: Tokyo’s Gift