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Procrastination or Carpe Diem?

Like many people, I constantly feel guilty about procrastinating.   I make long lists of things to do, and feel extremely virtuous if I cross any off.

When I started writing this article I was focusing on reducing the guilt, while improving the flow of work and personal projects, as well as still managing to have genuine chill time.

Then, I remembered a Robert Benchley article which I had read years and years ago, at school, (so really a long time ago).   It was called How to Get Things done, so I googled it (I do love Google, I feel I am achieving things when I do research) and reread it.  Just delightful.  It had to be shared, and so I did that on LinkedIn.

Back to my article on procrastination, realized it had turned into an article about decision making, and so I published it.  

The following day, I returned to my article on procrastination and, what a surprise, noted that I was a living case study for procrastination, as well as how to get things done the Robert Benchley way, because I published the Decisions article and had completed a whole lot of other pressing items, without completing my original task.

I don’t want to make excuses for the way I handle administration, although it is a strongly held belief that work should be enjoyable.    Life is about compromise, so I have developed my own Time Management model and it includes a reward system.

If I do something necessary that I really don’t enjoy, I give myself a “pick me up” by immediately handling something creative and interesting.   I also make sure that my Things to Do list has a few quick wins in it, because task completion energises me.  
 
I think it was Ellen de Generis who said procrastination should be fun.   We do spend a lot of our lives trying to be worthy citizens and chill guilt has insidiously crept in.

We seem to have turned leisure into work, too, even a Sunday afternoon stroll has to have a purpose! 
 
So I am going to make a list of Things Not To Do and tick it off daily.   This will allow me to enjoy all the things I am doing instead of the things I should not be doing. 

And if that doesn’t make sense, maybe it shouldn’t…..

Links, References and Notes

Business Connexion:Accsys
email:      tschroenn@accsys.co.za
twitter:   @TerylSchroenn
Note

Thank you for reading Teryl@Work.   Should you wish to use any of the material, please acknowledge this blog as the source
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