I've put it off long enough--another blog on procrastination

I believe I have mentioned before that I have an innate ability to procrastinate. I have procrastinated things for as long as I can remember.

Countless last minute hours were spent finishing homework assignments that I knew about for a month, but started and finished the night before it was due.

I STILL haven't taken Christmas neighbor gifts around. For Christmas 2007.

My house needs a good thorough cleaning, but is kindly waiting for me to stop putting it off and just get to it.

And right behind me as I type this blog, I have 5 really big Rubbermaid bins FULL of "scrapbook" stuff that I have just thrown in the bins over the years to 'someday' get to and put in some sort of order showing that I actually care about my family and the mementos we have kept. I can't procrastinate this one much longer. The bins were kept tucked neatly "out of sight, out of mind" in our storage room, but when my husband decided to clean out the room he also forced my hand on the scrapping crap.

And trust me, most of it IS crap.

I am fairly certain that if/when I do finally go through these bins that I will take the number 5 down to just 2 bins.

Because I also put off deciding what is really worth keeping, so have been known on way too many occasions to just open a bin and throw in things to decide about later.

Old school work my kids have done over the years. Art work, fine. But I'm talking spelling tests and math homework. I didn't even want to DO math or spelling as a kid, why would my own kids want to keep old paperwork? For posterity? "Hey look, back in the day I could add." Ah, the memories....

I'm really not looking forward to going through the bins. But I know it has to be done. So I will do like I always do and put it off to the last possible minute.

In the dictionary the definition of procrastinate is this:


pro-cras-ti-nate

–verb (used without object)
1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.

–verb (used with object)
2. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

I admit to having looked that definition up before I started this blog entry. It is another case of me knowing half the definition. #2 was the way I thought of the word. It is exactly what I do. Put everything off till another day or time.

The first definition made me actually pause and think. "To procrastinate until an opportunity is lost."

If I were the type of person who looked back a lot on things I've done or decisions I have made, I would probably be able to come up with a pretty long list of opportunities I have lost because of my procrastination.

Luckily (or unluckily) for me, my memory is not that wonderful--especially on things that might dishearten me. I have a fairly selective memory I think. I don't hold grudges--well, except for that one chick in band in high school who borrowed $20 from me on our band trip to Edmonton Canada to buy a cashmere sweater that looked fabulous on her and then she would run the other way when she saw me and never repaid me or the other people she borrowed $20 from to have enough money for the sweater...that still bugs me even 24 years later. Not that she didn't pay me back, but that she hid from me and wouldn't just tell me she couldn't pay it...but I digress--

I don't remember reasons for arguments, which can be good and bad. Good because I'm not walking around mad all the time (and holding a grudge), bad because if the argument is with my husband he has been known to take my forgetting of the reasons for our disagreement to mean I am pretending it never happened. I remember the part where we were disagreeing, but rarely remember the why of it all.

Which I guess makes a good case for my husband because if I don't remember why we were arguing, how am I going to not do or say whatever it was that started it in the first place? But it also makes a good case for him because if whatever it was that we fought about was HIS fault, I'm not going to nag and whine him to death about it all.

Seems like a win-win for him, doesn't it? :)

I do need to work on not procrastinating. I do see things that I am missing because of this particular skill I have.

Simple things like being late for most things because I just flat out put off getting ready to go. Putting off writing so that I miss the deadline for the 'First Chapter' contest at a writer's convention this year.

Complex things like not becoming friends with new neighbors because I put off meeting them until it becomes downright awkward. Not going to see new nieces or nephews when they are born because I put it off so long that they are home from the hospital--and sometimes crawling--before I get my backside in gear and go see them.

Things that when I am old and have nothing better to do except finally let my brain look backwards into things I have or haven't done with my life, I will regret. Or I will do my best to talk myself out of the regret--even though I will have earned every twinge of guilt or remorse.

Arthur Miller said: Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

So I will do my best to stop procrastinating. Then maybe I will have the right regrets.

Easier said than done when you have made procrastination an art form like I have.

I will probably just ease myself into it...be closer to on time to things. Meet my neighbors within at least the first 6 months of them moving into the neighborhood. See my new nieces and nephews before they speak in complete sentences...

I guess to start I should wrap up this rambling blog that is really only helping me ignore the Rubbermaid bins behind me...

Here is a quote I found that I like..and when you read it you'll see why...and then you will have zero faith in me that I will ever stop procrastinating. :)

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. ~Mark Twain