Sheri here,
Last week, I wrote about one of the important elements of an abundant life – consistency. That quality of patience, persistence and perseverance, in a word, consistency.
The Enemy of Consistency is Procrastination
That sense and attitude of “I’ll do it later, it doesn’t matter if I do it tomorrow instead of today. I’m not hurting anyone if I put it off.”
Yet you are the person you hurt with procrastination. It is the first cousin to sloth, which lulls us into complacency and complacency hurts us by piling things up day after day until the pile is so big it seems insurmountable. Have you ever been there?
Getting Started
Where all the things you put off are all of a sudden too great to overcome and you are paralyzed by inaction and the fear of getting started.
So how do you start? You just start with one thing. I like to set a timer in these situations for 15 minutes. After all I can do almost anything for 15 minutes.
Where do you start? You start with one thing – maybe it is empty the trash, pick up all the dirty clothes strewn about, or maybe it is washing the dishes. Find a spot you can pickup and see a difference quickly.
Using the Timer
If the timer goes off you have three choices: 1) reset it, 2) ignore it and keep working, or 3) take a break, but set the timer.
Maybe you’ve put off doing your bills – where do you start? Gather them all up, find a spot to sort through them and pay attention to the urgent. Deal with the urgent first. This too is where the timer is helpful. Just keep resetting it until you are done.
Maybe you ran out of money before you ran out of bills, then you have some phone calls to make to the creditor to let them know you’ll be late.
Ok, now that’s done! Doesn’t if feel good knowing the pile no longer haunts you? That you no longer need to wonder what’s in the stack and better yet, its tidy.
Ok, what’s next. You may deserve a break – including a quick bite to eat to keep your energy up. Now what’s the next priority? Keeping at this you may not finish everything, but I bet you made great progress. Now how does that look and feel?
By setting a regular schedule for everything you put off and consistently work at them, you won’t have to do a major cleanup again.
No Hot Mess Living
Isn’t living in tidy organized spaces better than squalor? Who knew, right?!
We don’t have to be perfect, just consistently staying on top of things. You may want to put some time in your routine for downtime – for legitimate procrastination time – the laying on the couch doing nothing or playing outside with your friends.
What your favorite downtime activity? Leave a comment and let me know.
Around Town
Now the book Everything I Learned About Life I Learned on Vacation, I got it back from the editor and it looks smashing, I still need to finish going through it. There are a few miscellaneous pieces and parts- some of the good things, like the acknowledgements – the “thank you”. I love thanking people. The cover art is pretty final and the back cover verbiage is getting done. Wow, now what? I need to find out, too – I believe it is the formatting to get it ready to publish. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you want to be on the wait list, click here.
Until the next time, may you have a blessed week.
Ciao,
Sheri
