When my second niece was in elementary school, she and I sat down and created a super hero:
THE Pro-CRASTINATOR!!!!!!!!
She'll get things done... EVENT-u-ally!!!!!!!!
We designed a super hero cape that could be attached with Velcro to an t-shirt, which I thought was genius. I always meant to make one, but... uh.. being the woman THE Pro-CRASTINATOR was based off, you can see why it never got done. :) Or rather, is still in progress. (Said niece is 16 and a half now.)
I read this on Facebook this week and loved it and it made me think of that story. Quote:
“It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.
But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.”
— David Cain, “Procrastination Is Not Laziness” (via pawneeparksdepartment)
For someone like me, a list of things to do is INCREDIBLY overwhelming. I can't handle it. I've never been a list maker. Occasionally I'd make a list, because it would make me feel like some kind of accomplished grown up, but I would then have to walk away from it because I couldn't handle dealing with it. It was too much. It takes me a long time to accomplish things because there are usually a number of things that I have to do first in order to get that simple task done, which sends me into a total meltdown.
Like, selling this baby gate I bought 6 years ago for my patio (so I could let my cats out to play) that wasn't wide enough and I lost the receipt for.
Everybody wanted to know how wide it was. So I had to research and track down the brand to find how wide it was OR, rip up my house and tack down my measuring tape.
Then everyone wanted pictures... Well, to take pictures I have to remember to photograph it during the day. I have chronic insomnia and am always forgetful so several YEARS pass and I keep forgetting to take a picture of it. And for me, I can't take a picture on my phone because there is no way to get the picture from the phone to the computer. (Or there wasn't until a couple weeks ago.) So I had to haul out the pro camera, etc. But that also means I had to clean the gate before I could photograph it. And oh yeah, clean a space to photograph it. Have you ever seen "Hoarders"? Yeah, that's what my house has looked like since Matt. So I either need to remember to take it outside during the day to shoot it, or clean my house so I can shoot it inside.
SIX YEARS LATER...
This is the story of my life!
Lately I have been very slowly getting things done. If I am focusing on that, that means I'm neglecting other stuff, because I can only do one thing at a time, but I have to take care of this stuff! So here are some things I've gotten done (just like a big girl!) and I am so proud!
I took care of the STUPID FREAKING BABY GATE and sold it for $10 on Craig's List. That was even my asking price, so WHEWWWW!
I listed my Barbri (Bar Prep) books for the CA State Bar, and other law school prep books, and my unused LSAT books on Craig's List but no takers. I even took pictures. Maybe I'll try ebay.
2 years ago I bought a 90 minute massage on Living Social, which I can't use because I can't handle someone touching me at this particular juncture, thanks. After four email exchanges with Living Social which I increasingly became whacked out, they credited me $45. Win for Emily.
Also 2 years ago I bought a Sunday newspaper subscription through Groupon which I also couldn't use. The first three messages they said they couldn't do anything. By the fourth they told me I was actually part of a class action lawsuit and could potentially collect. Annoying, but might work.
Renewed my car registration online, that wasn't too bad.
Have to go down to city hall tomorrow to renew my business license. It's almost 2 months late. They make you do your taxes before you can renew the license so this always throws me for a loop! Taxes aren't due until April and you want me, ME(!!!) to finish in December?! Are you NUTS?! It's only a $15 late fee to finish before March 1st, so I will take it down tomorrow, don't let me forget. I have been working on my taxes for almost three freaking months, I think I've figured it mostly out. Ugh.
I have to physically go to the DMV and renew my driver's license and get my picture taken. (Haven't done that since I was 15.) I have figured out which of the 5 DMV's by me I'm going to go for the shortest line, I just need to schedule the appointment... But I got part of that done! I know where I'm going!
I'm trying to slowly put my house in order to move. So while it's still a disaster area, I'm maintaining it just at THIS level of disaster and trying to not let it cross over to the level that's worse than this. And then I got my bathtub semi-clean (win), AND, this is exciting, after a year of asking questions, I am starting to sort clothes for donations. So I have a garbage bag in my room night now and I am getting rid of clothes. WHEWHOOOO!
I had a client meeting today, and I brought some of my spare magazines, slapped a logo sticker on them and gave them to her. That's two spare bridal magazines out of my house. Win.
I sorted through the 100's of magazines that have to be in my house, and brought some of them to my therapist's office and got rid of some of them that way. I somehow got on some magical magazine list where I have like three magazine subscriptions that I didn't pay for and I am receiving for free. LIke a year ago I got a postcard in the mail that said this was going to happen, but I thought it was junk mail and threw it away... Uh, guess it was real. I have no idea why they are giving it to me. Among the freebies though is Latina Cosmo though, and given that I am Caucasian, I don't know what to do with that and feel like I am, like, nosing into something I'm not supposed to be reading when I get it. So I brought all of those to her office instead. Oh, and US Weekly! Which comes weekly. (And I also got for free.) It's fun to read, and I hate to throw it away, but WOW does it generate a lot of trash in my house.
And then I have a friend who is working really hard and dropping lots of weight, so I gathered up the health magazines (that I pay for) and have read too many times to count and gave those to her, so I hope she likes those. I still have about 50,000 more magazines, but I didn't want to overwhelm anyone with too many at once, but I got some of them out!
I also took some time and emptied 70% of the backseat of my car! How about that! I also found about $50 or more in Suzy's Zoo stickers that I had bought for Matt (to put on letters I wrote him when he was "away" [but wasn't really, I just didn't know that]). I split them with a teacher friend and gave her most of them and just kept at least one of each for myself, and some extras of the cute ones. My next goal is to go through my scrapbooking supplies again and give her more of those because when I tried to give her those last time, I whimped out and only gave her a little of what I had and I could have given her way more. I guess I just wasn't ready. I just kept thinking about how much money I had spent on all of it. (Sigh.)
I'm working on my freezer of all things too. I have successfully kicked the fastfood habit that was draining my back account. So I was grocery shopping a lot instead, which saved money, but I was still hitting the grocery store at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. So both last week and this week when I ran out of my usual goods, I started digging through my freezer. I pulled out a container of soup I froze about a year ago and ate that last week, and ate another one (expired a year + ago) this week. Yesterday I whipped out some zucchini lasagna I made (zucchini, cottage cheese, homemade pasta sauce, everything from scratch, no pasta) about 3-4 years ago and ate that for dinner. (It was fine, no worries.) Tonight I pulled out some brie in phyllo pastry with apples and some buffalo chicken. The buffalo chicken is probably 2 years old, and the puff pastry I think expired in 2007. (Puffed up just great. Me n' Charlie split it.) Also made an arugula salad. I realized I have to empty this freezer and it will both save me money by eating it and be less wasteful.
I think I'll climb back in my room again tonight and go through some more clothes for the donation bin next!
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