stop procrastinating

Wednesday last week I suddenly found the switch to really start working again. I am not quite sure, why I didn’t find it earlier or why I found it just then. I just happened.

I have been tracking my working hours religiously, registering every little break, including bath room breaks, just to get an overview of the work I do. This also allows me to realize that I can actually manage to do a lot, if I just do it. Plus obviously, deleting things from the to do list as soon as they were done.

Now the switch just has to remain on.

I’ve taken the clue from Zen habits I believe to focus on three Most important Tasks, so for today

- Get the invitations out and do the follow up (again)
- Prepare the meeting in Feb
- Finish the yearly planning

I will not procrastinate and instead will
- do the invitations
- do the contract – done
- write the report – done

Simple as that, right?

Two out of three…hm. Did a whole lot of other stuff which also needed to be done, but dodged the one thing I didn’t feel like doing. So up it comes again…

Reading the entries of those people who actually finished this goal, it seems that they all just needed make up their minds to do it and did it. So, simple as that right.

So, while also limiting myself to the most important things, today I want to:
1) Work
- Summarize the workshop outcomes 13.00
- Write the justification
- Prepare the contract

2) Home
- Do the laundry
- Iron
- Install the wireless

3) Me
- Keep track of how I spend my time
- Use WW
- Drink 2 litres of water 12.00

Going with the Zenhabits today, I will define my three most important tasks of the day, plus a reminder of my long term goals.

plus
1) Do it now
2) Get moving

and the rest just has to come along.

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I wake up in the morning and know exactly what I want and have to do today. I feel motivated, not necessarily excited, but I know that the things need to be done. Then I arrive at the office, slump into my chair and feel totally drained, bored, basically ready to go home again. I don’t know why. It’s not that I don’t like going to the office, it’s not that I don’t like to work. It might that the things I have to do, don’t get me excited, but I don’t know what kind of things would or how to integrate those into my worklife. This is frustrating.

... at the ultimate task for a procrastinator. I have an assignment I don’t know anything about. So I have to do research on several topics, plus learn how to do use the software. It feels once again overwhelming and I already feel how I get pulled into doing something else just to escape this. Of course, I can’t because this is my job, but it has gotten clearer to me that a lot of procrastination is based on fear.

Another bad week and this is starting to worry me again. Since I am still basically between jobs I am missing structure and I hardly get anything done. It’s so sad because I would have the time to do lot’s and lot’s of things. I hate myself for being unable to move and do things that urgently need to be done. So not good…

If decided to take Kasha’s working binge as a great example and to get productive. Lot’s of things I can do today, even though I still have stomach cramps from that “great falafel place” we went to on Sunday.
I will
- go to the drug store
- return the first load of recycling stuff
- pick up the books for my sister
- talk to the insurance guys
- finalise the registration and payment
- finish the letter to my landlord
- book my train ticket and find out where I need to go tomorrow
- throw out all the garbage
- pack my stuff

and do some socialising. :-)

I handed in my visa application and all the stuff needed in time, but it turns out, this was not enough. So now I am stuck here without a place to live. I could have handed it in earlier, but I thought “in time” was enough. Well, apparently only if no one else messes up. I did procrastinate on it and this is the price to pay. I am so mad at myself.