quote from an earlier post

[lobelia321]

I self-quote:

*goes back to writing conference paper and preparing four modules for teaching next week, argh*

This, I am ashamed to say, was an utter lie. Yes, I apologise and grovel in the dirt for having duped and deceived my dear LJ Friends. Unforgivable, I know, and not practised by anybody else on LJ, of course, evah. But, alas, I did not in fact do *goes back to writing conference paper* (lines of conference paper written so far today, despite reminder emails: zero), nor did I engage in any *preparing four modules for teaching next week*, although there has been a good deal of *argh*.

Instead, I sat in a café and procrastinated by reading a book on how not to procrastinate.

There is no end to the inventive ways that dyed-in-the-wool procrastinatrices will find to indulge their number one vice!

Maybe I should just go and send myself an email reminder every day: Have you procrastinated today yet? If not, go away and shirk, shirk, shirk! But then, as my self-help anti-procrastination book advises me: one should never use the word 'should'!

Comments

[helenish.livejournal.com]

also, your current music thing - I can see the Should-Shuld dance reconceptualized as sort of a club-beat-heavy-techno goth thing.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*cackles*

I should (schuld!) market this. It might yet make me the millionaress patroness of all proctrastinatrices of the world. (And if I have to type that word one more time I will give myself a hernia of the fingers.)

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Stop "shoulding" all over yourself! I too am finding a million ways to keep myself from doing things that actually need doing, thereby stressing myself out further. Why do we do this to ourselves?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Why do we do this to ourselves?
omg, you used FlyLadySpeak! I am so susceptible to FlyLadySpeak, it's quite ridiculous.

This morning I exceeded the prescribed 15 minutes of de-cluttering by 45 minutes. This is housework procrastination! Nor was what I did strictly speaking 'de-cluttering' as it involved dismantling an entire fireplace, scrubbing at soot with a scouring pad and washing fire surround with window cleaner.

Even as I was SHINING MY SUBSTITUTE SINK, I felt the dread of shirking a) my conference paper and b) my teaching preparation.

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to procrastinate, but I never get round to it.

Try breaking up the task into itty bits, so you don't feel daunted by it. When you've done the first bit, you'll feel you're over the hump, and then it will get easier. And no shining of anything until some academic work is done, OK?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is very good advice but the extent of my shirking capabilities is quite wide. Today, I spent quite a bit of time 'breaking tasks into itty bits', i.e. making lists with all the itty bitty steps listed. List-making, however, is procrastination technique number one. Result: I have four lists. I have no teaching study guide. The thing is I want to do. I can do 'breaking down'; it's the doing of the broken-down bits!