monday morning maneuvering

Tags

Albert Einstein, photography, photos, procrastination, quote, thoughts, time, times

A new day, a new week and a whole lot of things to do. This week is filling up fast as is my desk with notes, lists, reminders. And somewhere in all this chaos I will have to find time to tackle my manuscript, after all my own set deadline is approaching fast.

So while I sit and maneuver my hours and minutes of this week, trying to make time for everything I need and want to do, I can’t help but wonder about time and how fleeting it can be.

At the beginning of the summer I had a few months of empty space, unplanned freedom rolling out expansively before me and now, with about four weeks left until students and lecturing dominate my life once more, my time is becoming more and more valuable.

With time seemingly running faster I am reminded of something I once read. To paraphrase it basically said that we don’t have too little time to do everything, we just priorities according to our wants and needs.

This means that I need to shake up my priorities and make sure that I don’t get into that all to familiar pattern of letting myself be caught up with things that are less important but very time consuming. Here’s hoping I can stick to my guns, be realistic about my timekeeping and beat procrastination into submission. But thankfully I still have a little time and don’t need to do everything at one.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

Albert Einstein

productive procrastination

Tags

home, home improvement, photos, procrastination

Deadlines looming, time relentlessly ticking on and a whole pile of work waiting, yet other things catch our eye, grab your attention, distract you from what needs to be done: our old pal Procrastination is back.

Most of us cuddle up with the big P from time to time, but some of us seem to have let him move in and disrupt our lives on a more daily basis. And while the only thing that really helps to shake procrastination off and get working is to just sit down and do it (sounds much easier than it is) but procrastination can have its benefits too.

Case in point is my recent lack of ‘bum-glue’, that magical substance that allows you to just sit down and stay there. It disperses any ants in your pants, helps your fingers dance over the keyboard and gets those creative juices flowing. But instead of letting procrastination talk me into curling up with a book and a mug of tea I have been productively procrastinating.

I dealt with all my paperwork and overdue filing, I tidied up my wardrobe, bagged clothes I no longer wear and even tackled my overflowing hoard of shoes and sorted the lesser-loved ones out.  The community garden has seen me more frequently, adding locally grown fruit and veg to my plate and my “pantry” has been reorganised, cleaned and sorted. I’ve even attempted sewing and have so far managed one patchwork pincushion for my neighbour.

But my main achievement, to my hearts delight and afternoon enjoyment, has been the creation of a bright blue bench that now thrones outside my front door.

Living so close to town in a tiny artisan cottage has many perks but one main downside: no garden. With the summer arriving in Dublin the need to sit out in the sun has knocked on my door again and I decided that I would do something about it. And since the front of my home is south facing it means that all afternoon the Dublin sun warms the path and shines in through my windows.

The idea of having a bench outside my door isn’t new, but the summer sun made it a more pressing matter and I asked a friend to help me turn the idea into reality.

So one sunny Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago, we turned a plank of wood into a beautiful bench that I sanded down and painted a vivid blue. And since then one of my favourite spots to sit and read had become a Dublin inner-city path, surrounded by a few potted plants.

And while I have restarted this blog in a plea to kick procrastinations butt and get typing more again, I am glad that at the very least my procrastination has been somewhat productive.

change of plan

Tags

cognitive resources, Peter Drucker, photography, planning, plans, procrastination, psychology, quotes, roy baumeister, time and mind, travel

Although I am not teaching at the moment my desk calendar still seems to fill up quickly. And with time running out fast until I hop on a plane for Berlin I have to plan a little bit. And of course there still is my to-do-list of all those little and big chores that seem to pile up no matter what time of year it is.

Studies done by E.J. Masicampo (Wake Forest University) and Roy Baumeister (Florida State) showed, that when we plan ahead we allow our brains to free up our cognitive resources (perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning) for other things. This means that when we plan, we are not just making it possible to succeed in reaching specific goals, but we are actually giving our minds space to deal with other stuff, too. One plan made means; we have time and mind-power to think of the next thing. However the follow-through is an entirely different matter!

As a long-time procrastinator I am a great planner, after all thinking about doing things is what we procrastinators do. But when it comes to completing the plan I am not so great. That is why I was thrilled when I was so organised and had my trip to Berlin all planned out and booked early on this year. Not only did I have a cheap flight and train ticket, but also a lovely place to stay all lined up.

So when I found an email in my inbox this afternoon telling me that the flat I was going to stay in was no longer available (personal issues) I was devastated. For once I in my life I had planned long-term ahead and to no avail. And now I had to change my plans. However as a procrastinator I am great at getting things done at last minute so I have sent out a flurry of emails and pleads looking for a new abode. And I am sure someone somewhere will find a bed and roof for me in the next two weeks. If not I am hoping for good weather and a comfy bridge.

It all goes to show that the famous management consultant and author Peter Drucker was so right when he said:

 

Unless a commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes … but no plans

some afternoon treats to soften the blow

my p-problem

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miscellaneous, procrastination, psychology, quotes, random, Rita Mae Brown, thoughts, writing

After a week away it is now time to get back to work. With my corrections sill not quite done and my deadline an hour away I feel a little bit under pressure. However it really is my own fault, I had a plan and didn’t stick to it leaving me slightly breathless and with red ink stains on my hands.

My problem is procrastination, I seem to spend so much time on thinking on how I am going to do something instead of actually doing it. I know many people “suffer” from this time-consuming condition but only few seem to be able to conquer it on  along term basis.

So to try and understand a little bit more about my p-problem I decided to take a closer look at what it is that keeps me doing the task at hand. (And yes, in true procrastinator fashion it distracted me from my real work).

While most of us believe procrastination is a part of our inner makeup it actually isn’t, it’s learned behaviour making it  possible to change, even if it does take a considerable amount of willpower. I also discovered that most of us aren’t TRUE procrastinators. While we think we are our real problem is time-management, we can’t seem to estimate the correct time we need to do certain things nor do we keep a manageable  to-do-list.

According to a list done up by the De Paul University in Chicago there are five little lies a true procrastinator tells themselves, believing them, unable to ignore that powerful inner voice:

1. Working when you don’t feel like it doesn’t give you good results
2. If you don’t feel like doing something you won’t be able to do it
3. Motivation is something you will feel tomorrow, or the next day or the day after
4. You need a lot less time then you do to do something (underestimate)
5. You have lots of time left to do something (overestimate)

And while these lies seem quite flimsy they are very successful from keeping someone from doing something they need to be doing and they also cover up the real reason procrastinators distract themselves. Most procrastinators have an inner most fear of failure and somehow they believe by not doing something they can’t fail, and when they do something rushed they know why it had to fail, diverting the fault away from themselves and really a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The only way to solve this problem is hard work, realistic expectations and a willingness to change. Of course being honest is key, honest with ourselves, with our time, our capabilities and goals.
So if I am honest, I am working on a last minute deadline but then like American author Rita Mae Brown once so aptly put it:

If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done

tomorrow never comes

Tags

fun, health, lists, miscellaneous, procrastination, random, thoughts, tomorrow

My ‘to do list’ is longer than my arm today and I already know half of the urgent items on the list will have to wait till tomorrow or possibly even Friday. So as I study my list and try to figure out which ones I can do quickly, which ones need to be done NOW and which ones  should have been done yesterday, my good buddy procrastination pulls up his chair beside me and offers me a cupful of daydreams and a plateful of  scrumptious ideas of how to fill my day in a more colourful way.

I know I should push him aside, ban him from my desk or maybe just chain him up and throw him in my non existent cellar, but he knows me so well and can really press my buttons.  And it really doesn’t help that the sky is blue, the sun is shining and a friendly home invasion will be taking place this afternoon.

Knowing that one in five of you who read these words (possibly more in bloggers) struggles with their own pal procrastination lurking behind their shoulders, makes me smile as I believe I am in very good company. Sadly this really doesn’t help any of us as we pile up the stress and tell ourselves how we “work better under pressure” or believe that we are superheros (mine has sparkly kick ass boots) who actually only need half the time to do certain things.

I know that checking me email and looking up my blog stats only delays what has to be done and I don’t really need to drink quite so many cups of tea even if I tell myself short breaks are good. Dancing to every song that I like may be good exercise but I don’t really have the time and why dusting suddenly seems so appealing I cannot fathom.

But thankfully procrastination is not imbedded in my genes but a way of life or a habit that I have picked up along the way. So by changing how I act and react may be  a slow process but it can be done. One trick is to set realistic goals, another to be honest with myself and finally  start today, not tomorrow as for a procrastinator tomorrow never comes.

Oops where did the day go?

Ending procrastination