I just reread the last entry, and I had to laugh. How many times have I said I was “on a roll?” When I’m “on a roll,” I just stuff every day as full as I can until the adrenaline wears off, and then I’m back to being a lazy bum again.

There is no self-flagelation like that of someone who thinks that she’s a lazy bum, that she should be able to fix it, and that she’s such a bum she just hasn’t put her mind to it.

The truth is that I’m trying to change a habit. You can’t give yourself a hard time for having trouble changing a bad habit. You took a long time to develop it and you will probably need a long time to change it.

So thank heavens for my friend Tanya.

We were talking about this problem of mine, and she volunteered – volunteered! – to call me every night at midnight to talk for ten minutes about what I had done that day. It’s a tiny little business meeting – I tell her what I did, she tells me what she did, we say “Okay, talk with you tomorrow,” and we hang up.

It’s amazing how much it helps to have someone to whom you are accountable. She is such a good friend that if I don’t do anything on a day, I don’t feel like I have to lie about it, even though we’re on the telephone, and she’d never know. But I want to have something positive to tell her, so I make sure I do something. And each day that I do something reinforces the new habit of doing.

At the beginning, I would force myself to do one thing, and then I’d “need” a nap, so I could avoid doing more. But every day I would do a little more before I had to stop. Today, after a month of nightly appointments, I really wanted a nap, but I knew I didn’t need one. Instead I kept working for three more hours and got a lot more done.

And I keep catching myself in avoidance habits. For example, writing this entry on 43Things is helping me avoid working on a project that is due tomorrow. So now that I’ve caught myself, I’ll sign off and go finish it. ;-)