Saturday afternoon – I want to “relax” (what does “relax” mean?? anyway, I’m not good at it, but I’m good at “goofing off”. What is the difference? Maybe it’s that relaxing is intentional, a considered choice, with a purpose.)
I’d LIKE to play the guitar, read, play free cell, collect even more songs on spotify, take a nap. But I NEED to do this blog, catch up on my accounting and my medical records, research some stocks and prepare an appeal to send to medicare to try to get paid on an old account( tho it probably wont work).
So I need strategies:
1. do the hard part first. I am going to finish this blog.
2. balance- After this, I will do one of the things I want, but just one, then back to a need to.
3. reward – doing one of the things I want will be a reward for doing one of the need to’s. that’s a mind game.
4. small steps – I’m planning to do only one of the accounts, and only one of the records- that will be progress, and now those need to’s don’t feel like big burdens, hard chores. (Once I do one account or one record, it’s likely I will have some momentum, and will go on and do some more, but it’s not ‘required’. One will be a sucess.
5. language – I’m carefully saying “need to”, not have to or got to or should. Those words turn anything into a chore, probably unpleasant, and triggers automatic resisitance.
6. schedule – I have all these things written down in the order I plan to do them, and then will get the satisfaction (positive reinforcement) of crossing them off as they’re done.
you are reading this, so you know i got it done! (thanks, duane)
doug
also I keep reminding myself that I’m going fishing monday, and getting these need to’s done today frees up the time for that. Life is good!
Bonnie Mincu’s blog on procrastination clik here
