I wasn’t kidding when I posted the challenge for this week and said that I am an excellent procrastinator. I mean, seriously… I excel at it. I don’t try to, and in fact I try very hard not to. But the fact of the matter is that I am just so damn good at it.
Sadly, this is not a marketable skill. And really, this is not so much a problem I have in the work place. If I did I would not be able to do my job. Sure we all have little tasks in our jobs that we put off here and there, but really one of my biggest skills at work is being able to prioritize and get things done. I am always carrying a list on a legal size notepad that I am constantly checking things off of, rewriting, checking more off of, and rewriting again. As a stage manager, my job is to be organized. And I’m pretty good at it if I do say so myself. If something is on that list of mine it may not get done for awhile but that’s not because I am procrastinating, it’s because it falls to the bottom of the list while I work on the bazillion other things before it. But if it’s on that list… It will get done. Sooner or later. I once had a co-worker tell me that someone asked them to do something they had asked me to do but he told them he had seen me write it down on my list so he absolutely knew I was working on it. That… Is how I roll.
Well, that’s how I roll at work. At home, this is a different story. And I can tell you that it is without a doubt because at work other people are counting on me. Events are counting on me. I have to get my crap done so that other people can get their crap done, or so that things run smoothly and people enjoy themselves. At home, generally the only person really affected by whether or not I do something is me. Well, ok maybe me and my roommate. But not like, whole throngs of people. So, who cares if I finish that blog? Who cares if I change that light bulb? Who cares if I iron that laundry…
Well hang on… I care. Don’t I? I mean I should. And sometimes I do. But maybe just not enough. Because… It only affects me. And I’m just not as concerned about taking care of myself as I am about taking care of other people.
Wait… Hang on… Back up…
I’m just not as concerned about taking care of myself as I am about taking care of other people.
And there you have it in a nut shell. This is really something that is at the root of many issues I am facing. I’m not procrastinating on things because I don’t want to do them. I would like to finish that blog, I enjoy writing it. I would like to change that light bulb; it would be nice to not trip over things in the dark. I would like to iron that laundry, I listen to podcasts that I like while I iron so it’s actually something I sort of enjoy, a chore turned into me time. Not to mention, I like the feeling that I have when I know all this stuff is done and taken care of. But they seem less important somehow because no one else is affected by what I am doing. And now, what the hell is that? I wouldn’t let someone else put off these things as long as I do if someone else were directly affected I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen.
And that is the root of a great big ton of my problems. This is not just a me thing. I know lots of people like this, especially women, who put everyone else’s needs before their own. I would venture to say that MOST women I know are like this. It’s like a gene. We will help everyone else before we help ourselves. And in the process we start to put off the things that will make our lives better. And in the end we’re not happy. And those people we have been trying so very hard to take care of are not happy because we are not happy.
Maybe this is a little to deep of an excuse for being just plain lazy. It’s possible. But then, there are so very many aspects of my life in which I am not lazy. So I don’t think that would be a fair assessment of the situation. And don’t get me wrong, this is not about always doing something for someone else before I do for myself. I will absolutely at times choose to watch something on the DVR before I take care of some tasks I need to attend to. Because I don’t care about myself to make sure those tasks are attended to… it doesn’t matter. It only affects me.
Ouch.
I would never let someone else treat me that way. Why on earth do I let myself?
I’m not alone in this. I hear it from friends all the time and in fact I am usually that person who is reminding them that they are selling themselves short and need to stop letting people treat them as less than they are. I told a good friend once that you teach other people how to treat you. If you allow someone to treat you poorly they will have to assume that this behavior is acceptable and they will continue to do so. Because you have given them no reason not to. You have taught them that there are no consequences for their action or inaction or thoughtlessness or, in extreme cases, their cruelty. I’m very good about not letting others treat me poorly. Rarely will I let something go on to long if I feel it is unfair or inappropriate or hurtful. But I think I have spent many many many years teaching myself how I am to be treated. And I have been a horrible teacher. It’s time for a new lesson plan.
And I started with this week’s challenge.
I started by making a list of all the things I have been putting off. I quickly realized that this list was… Well it seemed endless. Every time I thought I was done I added something else and there was no way I would be able to tackle it all. Which, luckily I had already decided that I was going to do just 10 things. So here, in no particular order, are the things I did:
1- Well okay, this one is in particular order because it was absolutely the first thing I did. I called Thea, one of my best friends. If you are thinking to yourself why on earth would you procrastinate on calling your best friend, I will tell you it’s probably not for any of the reasons that are popping into your head. We weren’t in some kind of fight. We didn’t have some awkward conversation. It wouldn’t be awkward that I hadn’t talked to her in forever (I could go 5 years without speaking to her and the next call would be like we talked yesterday). There was no reason to put it off. And it was absolutely something I wanted to do, something I would enjoy doing. Something I needed to do. I just… Hadn’t done it. There was no reason. No reason other than that I just hadn’t made it a priority. Because I knew that she wouldn’t be mad, or think I was avoiding her, or feel neglected. We both have our own lives with lots going on. I just didn’t make it a priority because it was something for me. Something I wanted to do. And that meant it wasn’t allowed to take priority. I didn’t realize that was what was happening, but it was. (This particular task, by the way, is how I know that this procrastination thing has so much more to do than with being just plain lazy. Calling Thea involves dialing the phone… There’s really not much effort. This whole issue has nothing to do with the amount of effort needed for the task at hand.) Just another example of me not doing what I need to for me. So I called her. And it was lovely. And we caught up, not on everything, but on a lot of things. And it was very very good for my soul. It had been literally months since I had spoken to her. And although we could go 5 years without talking, we can’t. Because I can’t. Note to self.
2- I spent some time to delete people from my phone. Every once in awhile I do a good facebook purge, deleting people I’m not really friends with, that I don’t talk to, or who are so miserable online that it affects my mood when I read their posts. But I had tons of people in my phone that I haven’t talked to in years. Some of them I was keeping “just in case”. What if one day for some bizarre reason I NEED to call that person that I hung out with twice when I first moved to Florida who doesn’t even live here anymore… I mean, seriously? And anyway, if I really did have some earth shattering reason I NEEDED to get a hold of them you can pretty much find anyone on the internet. And if I can’t, well then it wasn’t meant to be. Delete. This also was helpful in a few cases where I had two people in my phone with similar names and had, upon occasion, come very close to accidentally dialing the wrong person. Some of the people I deleted were old business contacts that I don’t need anymore. And then there were a couple that were people who I kept their numbers just because if they called I wanted to know not to answer the phone. We all have those people… Ex boyfriends (or girlfriends), friends who became toxic, just people you don’t want to talk to. But the thought occurred to me that I rarely answer the phone anyway, and I never answer if it is someone I don’t know. So what’s the point? Sometimes while looking through my contacts for a number I would see these people’s names and instantly feel that twinge of disgust, sadness, fear, or whatever other unpleasant emotion went with them. It’s not worth it. If they call they can leave a message. And if they don’t, well, I don’t need to know that they called in the first place.
3- I caught up with my blogs… I promptly fell behind again, but I caught up.
4- Cleaned my room… Again… I had been working an event and with getting sick before that I had definitely taken to just dumping my things and running. It was time.
5- I updated my Sunpass. For those of you who don’t live in Florida a Sunpass is a little box that goes on your dashboard or inside of your windshield that allows you to go through express lanes on Florida toll roads. Well, several months ago my credit card number was stolen and I had to get a new one. But I forgot to update it on my Sunpass so every time it went to automatically replenish my account it couldn’t. I realized after awhile when the stupid thing started making this horrible buzzing sound every time I went through a toll that this was probably the issue. But the problem was that if I wasn’t going though a toll I wasn’t thinking about it… Until they sent me a letter that said pay up or die… Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite phrased like that. But this challenge was well times in that I made sure to do this as part of it.
6- I turned in a bunch of receipts for my flexible spending medical account… Which is money in my pocket. Literally, they sent me checks to pay me back for the stuff I submitted. Why the hell would I put this off? I guess because it seems like a few bucks here, a few bucks there… inconsequential. Well it adds up. And it was time to take care of it.
7- I made a dentist appointment. I wasn’t putting this off on purpose. I’m not one of those people who is afraid of doctors. I mean, I have other things I would like to be doing but it’s necessary. And it had probably been about a year since I went so I definitely needed to.
8- I made an eye appointment. Just another thing I had kept meaning to do. I love getting new glasses and I enjoy the people in my eye doctor’s office. Just hadn’t called.
9- I made a dermatologist appointment. I am incredibly fair skinned and my risk for skin cancer is astronomically high. I usually go every 6 months to get a skin scan. But I just kept… That’s right… Putting it off. I actually had to cancel an appointment 8 or 9 months ago because of work and never rescheduled. So now it’s been more than a year since I have been. Luckily up to now they have never found something, but I can not afford to take that chance and need to keep up on this.
10- And finally, I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. I had been having some issues with my right knee when I went up or down stairs. I’ve been walking more and more and then starting noticing some issues when I was walking. And forget about squats or lunges unless I wanted to be in a lot of pain. In normal daily life it wasn’t that big a deal, but when you start to have pain every time you go up or down the stairs in your house… That’s a problem. I have actually had this appointment already. I thought for sure that the doctor would tell me to quit being whiny and there was nothing wrong with it. Well, there is nothing seriously wrong but as it so happens I do have some degenerative arthritis and now have to go to physical therapy. Aaaaaaaand, I am officially getting old. Damn it.
I should sidebar here a moment and say that I did have another thought cross my mind in this process. I am a list maker by nature. I mean… I make lists for EVERYTHING. Groceries, to do lists, packing lists, pros and cons lists, projects lists, I even make lists in conversations (I am well known for my “A)/#1- blah blah blah…. B)#2- blah blah blah” format of dialogue. I like things organized. And it used to be that I constantly kept a to do list… I realized I haven’t done that in a long long time. I mean, I constantly keep a work to-do list. But I hadn’t kept one for me, the things I needed to do and take care of for quite awhile. So some of this supposed procrastination really had a lot to do with just plain forgetfulness. I am very out of sight, out of mind. So all of these things I needed to do weren’t staring back at me from a list. They would just pop out of my head. And I would think “Oh, I need to do that” and get distracted by something else. I need a reminder. I need something physical, tactile, to write down and cross off.
I blame technology for this. Well technology and a person who shall remain nameless who told me several years ago that the fact I still carried around a little mini notebook everywhere I went when I had a Blackberry AND a smart phone, was just ridiculous. And I thought he was right. I mean here I had two devices that are made exactly for this sort of thing. They have programs and aps and things where I can make lists. My Droid has several organizational/ to-do list type of aps on it right now. And I have tried and tried and tried to use them. And then I just stop. Because for me it is not the same as having a pen and paper. I like crossing things off. I like rewriting the list once I get half of it done. I like the reminder that hey, I have rewritten this one task about 800 bajillion times, perhaps I should put this one at the top of this next rewrite and actually do it. I was so much more productive when I just carried my mini notebooks. I still carry notebooks, I’m a writer after all, but I have been kidding myself for the past few years, jotting a note here and there and then entering that jotted note into whatever stupid ap I have downloaded now that promises to be the next great organizational answer to my prayers. And then promptly forgetting about said ap or being frustrated with said ap, or just plain not liking it because all I want to do is cross something off which is absolutely NOT the same as deleting it. I recognize that this is not green of me. It is not environmentally sound. And I am sorry for that. But it is what works for me. And I tried to do it the way that makes more sense… But it was the way that made more sense for that guy who told me to… Not the way it makes more sense for me.
This past summer I was working on a show and needed to add a section. It was sort of a last minute thing, a monologue that needed to come in the middle of a song. So one day while the quartet who sang it were rehearsing in a hallway with the show director, my good friend Rob, I stood there listening to them over and over again, scribbling in my notebook, writing, rewriting, crossing out, scribbling more, crossing out more, drawing arrows, changing words, circling words, all until I had it. At some point Rob looked over at my messy page and grinned, saying something like “I love that you’re so old school” referring to my pen and paper. And you know what? I love it to.
So I’ve got myself a notebook and a list that is already about a page long. I’m not going to knock it all out at once, but already I have been getting a few of the things done here and there. And I am going to remind myself that doing the things I need to do still need to be done, even if I am the only one affected by them. Actually, especially if I am the only one affected by them. Because I’m a lot more effective for other people if I am taking care of myself. And I am a lot more effective for me if I am taking care of myself.
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