I feel lighter when I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Probably because it happens infrequently, so it feels like winning.
I am a procrastinator at heart. It goes back a long way. Though I am better than I used to be, I often plan a productive day with a list of projects I am going to do and then not start the first item on the list. I see the projects done in my mind’s eye. It is satisfying to think of them accomplished, but they don’t get done because they don’t get started. When they don’t get started they tend to grow in enormity and become overwhelming work that I cannot start. I need a deadline and most things I want to do don’t have deadlines–like writing a sharingden.com post.
‘I’ll empty the smelly compost collector under the counter today,’ I’ll think. It doesn’t take long and it pleases me to feed the worms, see them wriggling. Why don’t I get it done for days after I initially know it needs doing? I have time to do it, but I do other things to fill that time. Then I berate myself for failing to accomplish what I set out to do. It’s a vicious and nonproductive cycle.
Yesterday I got started on a few little things I wanted to do–compost bin emptying amongst them–and accomplished several things on my list. It felt really good to be responsible, to be disciplined in my personal life like I am in my professional life. I am rewarded with a sense of having cared for myself. Perhaps I will remember this success the next time I am feeling down on myself for taking it easy instead of being productive. Perhaps I will think that I a don’t always fail to do what I want to do. I will try to have that self-compassion.