Begin, Began, Be done, Crushing Procrastination

One simple practice that dissolves the beast that gnaws away at aspiration.

We all suffer from it to some degree, and if we claim we don’t, we are probably stumbling in a vague mist of anguished denial.

The debilitating process of procrastination seeps, like wood rot, into our core and without the least trace is able to disassemble our best intentions, able to leap great ambition with the weakest distraction and diminish our hopes to a melting mass of despondency.

If supermen/women fear the glow of kryptonite then every writer harbors the fear of procrastination.

I am by no means qualified to disseminate, in the broad spectrum of society, the psychological causes or the manifestations that nurture this seething, often relentless demon within so many. I am but a grain of salt on the massive Uyuni salf flat in Bolivia. (If you squint and look to the left, you can just see me past the distant crack near rock number three.)

I do not profess any statistical data to support and lend bombastic credence to my position.

I merely struggle, like so many, with procrastination.

(Securing a doctorate in procrastination may have been offered to me, I don’t know, I had some other issues to attend to, so I couldn’t get to the ceremony… next year.)

Procrastination usually rears its ugly head early for me, 4:13 A.M. actually. The first time I hit the snooze button for an extra 9 minutes of sleep.

NINE MINUTES … Really? Is that going to change the mojo pulsing in one’s system?

No. Just No.

The iphone should carry an option to alter the text on the snooze button. Perhaps it should say ‘push here to procrastinate’ or ‘go on waste it.’

Even using the 5,4,3,2,1 method as professed by Mel Robbins can be undone with enough of a cunning argument from the dark Prince of Procrastination.

Crawling at 4:22 + from my futon, the next barrier is the cold.

SHIT! The bed was so warm.

Surely there is a study performed that would reassure the validity of sustaining bed warmth (innocently beckoning me to return below the covers) over the horrors of an ice cold floor. Living in the mountains outside Tokyo, as I do, is a challenge in the winter as homes are built for the summer breeze and the ghostly white breath one sees through the dim haze of morning, is to me, a virtual cloud of kryptonite.

The frozen, polished wooden floors bark at the idiocy of yoga. The mat is too far away. My feet may have frostbite in the ten steps it takes to get to the yoga mat. The mat is probably frozen and stiffer than a week-old cadaver, which with the current indoor temperature, I may also soon become. There is probably not enough heating oil to fire up the burner. The wick looked quite short and it may not fire up. I shouldn’t waste the heating on a bit of yoga.

STOP ALREADY!

Just hunt around. Find the matches. Replenish the oil. Unroll the mat. Find some sweatpants somewhere in the mayhem that is life.

Then of course I need to locate the barbells, bands. Oh! My yoga tunes!

BUT WAIT.

Wasn’t there a study done on the benefits of drinking black coffee on an empty stomach before training? I could kill two birds with one stone. I could check it on the internet. My love will be awake in an hour and she is always much better at lighting this finicky stove. I will rattle it around like a drunken turkey escaping Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen. It would be wrong to disturb her. I am so considerate! I just need a blanket and my laptop. I can just curl up and get the research done. After all I wouldn’t want to waste an opportunity to maximise my training.

Where is the blanket?

Actually, it’s so warm under this blanket I could just catch another ten minutes. Save the fuel. It is selfish to heat the house just for me. I walked a lot yesterday, don’t want to stress my knees or it will come back to haunt me in the future.

The result?

TWO HOURS LOST. Daily life intrudes and the mantra, “I’ll do better tomorrow” slithers into my mind.

Guilt, shame, self-debasement, self-judgement, self-recrimination, all race through the ever-dissolving grey matter that balances atop my shoulders.

CAN I SAVE THAT GREY MATTER?

I have at last, (decades late,) found a means to combat the rot.

It is not simple, but it is simple. It may be on TikTok, I don’t know and don’t really care.

The teacher shall appear when the student is ready.

I’m READY!

I eliminated… no… (honesty first)… reduced… (so much better) my procrastination by searching the moment before.

So often in life we battle with unanticipated forces that appear at the time of involvement which set us off course. When in truth, victory in whatever form the battle may embody lies in the moments before it begins.

Yes, it is all about preparation.

GOD! How tedious is that saying. We have all heard it.

What does it really mean?

For me, and I am merely the third pawn from the left on the great chessboard of life, it takes but ten minutes. Ten minutes to nirvana… (no that’s bollocks), but ten minutes to tranquility or harmony, to tackle the day, to seize the day… oh yes, I can do that.

Before crashing the night before: I set my sweats beside the futon, slippers nearby, check the heater levels, have the youtube page that plays my yoga tunes open so I just have to press and play, put the alarm two arm lengths away. (Gotta role out of the womb to stop that puppy!) I know that if i spend this ten minutes of prep, when tomorrow beckons, two stumbled steps and the day is rocking.

It is about preparation for the next day. Never give yourself an excuse to say ‘no.’

With writing, when I finish for the day, I quickly scribble where I want my next scenes to go; a few half-baked visions of a conflict, sentence fragments, character intentions and actions, even a description to pursue. Then when I return for the next session, I glance at those brief notes and immediately the rush is upon me. Rawhide!

To thwart the demon of procrastination I spend ten minutes in preparation. You cannot dig a ditch if you spend all day pretending to look for a shovel. Put the shovel out the night before.

Preparation is the boat that can float your ambitions, procrastination is the rope that ties them to the pier.

One cannot seize the day if one can’t open their eyes to the sunshine.

Thanks for reading. K

(Two arm lengths away for the alarm.)