ritu99

It seems hard to tell whether I’ve accomplished this goal (“stop procrastinating”). For the most part I have been getting things done that I wanted over the last couple of months – I believe anyway – so I thought maybe I hadn’t been procrastinating. But then I realized that I have just been doing it for the last 30-45 minutes – thinking I should get off Facebook & email and start studying.

Whenever you’re procrastinating, there is this constant naggy feeling, like a repeating thought “I gotta stop this & start working on that”. For those of us who’ve been procrastinators for as far back as we can remember, it’s so familiar a mode that maybe we can’t catch ourselves easily?

So, that’s probably the first step (like with anything else): to learn to catch it. The second step would be to learn to stop it after we catch it, or at least set a time limit & then actually stick to it (as opposed to “10 more minutes” & still being at it 30 minutes later, & so on).

If I were always setting clear goals (ranging from long-term covering years all the way to as short as the next hour), then I could tell whether the procrastinating was a problem or not. But this might require a lot of time in just the setting of goals. And I’d rather reduce the frequency of this nagging procrastinating feeling. But maybe the goal-setting is a way to get there.

Hmmm, am I thinking in circles here? Let’s try the theory out in practice. First goal: it’s 7:11 a.m. – I am getting off the computer by 7:15 a.m. Second goal: plan out the rest of my morning by setting some goals.

Let’s see how that goes now.

I add an entry listing my planned tasks, and then I see I’ve actually done them. Wow. Good for me!

Let’s start with what’s left from last week’s list:

Becoming quite urgent:
- taxes – my mother’s, & mine (less urgent)
- rent an apt. or room in Kingston
- get winter tires off car (& oil change at the same time)

Important:
- my foot: get a referral to a specialist or something
- get blood test & get prescriptions updated
- car stuff: emissions check & sticker renewal; regular maintenance items from manual
- make sure company’s taxes & other final paperwork are done for closing it
- plan some fun trips for Mike & me

Coming up:
- more estate executor tasks (after will is probated)
- correspondence course & lecture course at Queen’s both start May 5th

So, today’s plan:
- appt. with lawyer to sign papers for application to probate will
- figure out mother’s medical expenses for tax purposes, and send mother’s tax info to Pankaj
- call person in Kingston to look at the apt.
- make an appt. for car work