At this time of the year when I’m recovering from all the summer visitors and the upside down lifestyle changes the summer brings I find myself looking forward to getting back to normal and struggling to recall what normal was like. Although I was able to publish two posts each week this summer, I fell behind when it came to replying to comments and visiting other blogs and leaving comments.
I’m considering how to approach the autumn. I have contracted work to do as well as work in our small business and blogging. I feel overwhelmed and I’m developing a strong desire to procrastinate. I know from past experiences that dealing with things as they come amounts to choosing to go into crisis mode, and I know how much of an energy drain and threat to my health it is to deal with crisis after crisis.
Without doubt developing a schedule is what I must do but I’m feeling defiant. Rather than setting priorities and developing a timeline I’ve been doing some reading about procrastination and discussing it with other bloggers. (Laugh, it’s okay. :D )
Procrastination, Perfectionism and Depression
Procrastination is a type of avoidance behavior where a person puts off tasks because of hectic schedules or because the tasks are unpleasant or uninteresting. Until I did some reading, I didn’t recognize there were such strong connections between procrastination, perfectionism, and depression. Lifestyle changes are difficult for anyone to cope with and even more challenging for perfectionists. Like procrastination, depression involves a failure to act. It’s one of the things that characterizes depression—lack of energy and motivation.
In order to break the procrastination habit, we need to get past the idea that in order to write, we must have all the information pertaining to the topic, and we must have optimal writing conditions. In reality, writers never have all the information, and conditions are never optimal. — Procrastination
I read Leo Babuta’s My Fav Procrastination Hack – 30-10 and also read Alexander Kjerulf’s unique approach. He says sometimes procrastinating is exactly the right thing to do at a particular moment, and he uses it as away to recharge and get blogging ideas. How to procrastinate effectively
Organizing, scheduling, updating to-do lists
When I decided to purchase a domain for this blog I set these goals. This week I will be recharging and reviewing my goals. I’ll be setting my priorities, developing a timeline, organizing, and making adjustments to my to-do lists.
For those of us who are procrastinators, Toodledo has a special tool that analyzes dates, priorities, time estimates, and other characteristics to create a customized schedule of the best use of your time. And rememberthemilk is also an excellent organizational choice for scheduling your time.
Discussion
- Do you have difficulty starting or completing tasks because your standards are too high?
- Do you think a lot about what you’d like to accomplish but rarely get projects off the ground?
- Do you hesitate to leave your comfort zone, avoiding situations that cause stress or anxiety?
- Do you ignore important tasks, then, at the last-minute work frantically to get them done?
- Do you become irritable or argumentative when asked to do something you don’t want to do?
- Do you have difficulty saying “No” to people who ask for help but feel resentful later on?
Take Linda Sapadin’s A Procrastination Mini-Quiz and find out what type of procrastinator you are and what you can do to overcome procrastination.
What’s your procrastination type and how does it affect your blogging?
A working definition for intention is: “to have in mind a purpose or plan, to direct the mind, to aim.” Before my yoga classes I accept the invitation to set an intention for practice, away from worldly distractions and toward my goal of concentrating and remaining in the now moment. An intention is a short powerful statement that affirms you have set a goal and intend to achieve it and I’ve been applying that to my blogging as well as to my yoga. Continue reading 
Blog 
Shorter than a blog posting, a “tweet” consists of a concise sentence or two and essentially answers the question: What are you doing?
