Paralyzed Procrastinators (and a Giveaway!)
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Hey local gals: I wanted to give a shout out to my new friends I met at my event at the DeWitt School PTA last night. What a fabulous bunch of folks! Also, for any of you Mid-Michigan gals who are interested in some support in the battle of the bulge, I’ll be leading a Made to Crave group that will meet at my church (link on the left sidebar) for seven weeks beginning Monday night, February 28th. This study is designed to go along with whatever healthy eating plan you choose and will enable you to find the ‘want to’ in losing weight. For more info and to see the clever book trailer, click here. If you want info about our local group, email me at [email protected].
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Procrastination:
The act of delaying;
Repeated inactivity resulting in something being put off until a later time;
To fail to accomplish something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness;
To postpone needlessly.
Do you procrastinate?
Have projects you’ve been wanting to get around to tackling but just can’t seem to find the energy to do?
Are there cluttered closets, unwritten thank you notes from Christmas, disorganized storage rooms, filthy shower stalls or a fridge that hasn’t been cleaned for so long now you need a hazardous materials suit and a chisel to get at it?
Why do we procrastinate?
Laziness?
Sometimes.
Boredom (we’d rather play than work)?
Yep.
The task seems too overwhelming?
Uh-huh.
Or how about this one…..we are paralyzed by perfection. I mean we don’t want to do the thing unless we can do the thing perfectly.
So there sits the thing…..undone.
How about we pinky promise that this weekend we will carve out a slice of time to get off of our duffs and bravely venture into the frustrating world of our persistent procrastination.
Here are a few tips that have helped me.
~ Break it down into bite-size chunks. When the chore seems insurmountable, take it one step at a time. Maybe you won’t be able to totally re-organize your entire pantry, clean out the fridge and freezer, sort through and re-align all of your dishes and cooking utensils and spit shine the floors, countertops and appliances this weekend, but I’ll bet you could at least tackle the kitchen junk drawer. Or pick one of the aforementioned projects to accomplish.
Baby steps now…
~ Next set a timer and tell yourself you’ll stop when it rings. Yep, experts assert that if you set a timer for just 20-30 minutes and dive into you task, after a few minutes the momentum you feel by seeing progress can be all the push you need to find the desire to finish the thing entirely.
~ Find a friend. You surely must know a fellow procrastinator. Buddy up. Go to her house for an hour or two to help her tackle a nasty or frustrating chore. Then, swing by a coffee shop, re-fuel and head to your place to work on your project for a while.
~ Reward yourself. Promise yourself that after the task is complete, you’ll treat yourself to something fun. Rent a movie, curl up with a magazine and cup of something steamy, or buy yourself that cute pair of earrings you wanted the other day.
~ Be patient. Your home didn’t get cluttered in a day and it won’t de-clutter itself overnight. But with a little planning, some “gumption and elbow grease” as my momma used to say, and a few weekends, you can finally begin to kiss procrastination goodbye!
Now for the giveaway:
Since I firmly believe that women often aren’t willing to have others over for some good ‘ole fashioned hospitality due to their procrastination projects staring them in the face and making them feel defeated, I want to give away the following to three of you who leave a comment this weekend (yes, I’m feeling generous!)
~A personalized, signed copy of my book A Life That Says Welcome; Simple Ways to Open Your Heart & Home to Others. This book is not only on hospitality, it also has chapters on dejunking, cleaning, decorating and tons of easy, crowd-pleasing recipes. Oh, and it also tells the tale of my marrying into a gourmet family full of interior decorators, Bed & Breakfast owners and fancy cooks…..when I barely knew how to boil water!
~ And a $10 Target gift card so you can purchase either supplies for your project or a little reward for yourself.
So, here is the dealio…..leave a comment telling us the procrastination project you most want to tackle. Three of you will be chosen at random by my random integer selector (my boys give me a random number! I have no clue how to use random integer selectors so I improvise!).
Comment away….. I’m off….um….er….well…to write those Christmas thank you notes. Slightly embarrassing coming from someone who speaks and writes on organization, but hey…I’m just keepin’ it real people.
Happy Weekend!
Thanks Karen I hope to tackle one thing tomorrow. I need to clean and organize my spare room. My son moved out and holidays and everything and it looks like we are hoarders it needs to be completed.
my home office – which includes my scrapbooking space, although i have never in the four years in this house worked on my scrapbooks here. (i go to a friend’s house). Now that all 3 of my kids are in school every day, i’d really like to have an organized scrapbook space so i could get caught up!
I use to be orgnaized and on top of things until I started caring for my ailing Mom. It started out with just trips to the doctor or the store but as her illnesses progressed, her needs became greater. Trips to the doctors, sometimes 4 days a week, then the broken bones started….first a hip then two carotid artery surgeries. I tried to keep up here and with her and I worked one day a week, too. As more broken bones happened, more grandkids were born……thank you God, and in the middle of it all my daughter had a baby and a week later had a stroke. 6 months later she had open heart surgery to fix the hole in her heart, my youngest brother went into the hospital and after 6 weeks on a respirator he died. During this whole time Mom was in a rehab facility as she had fallen and broken both shoulder, her arm and some ribs the month before my brother got ill. My daughter healed well, praise God and Mom went home finally. I was then helped with her care by a brother and his wife but her needs grew more each year until in 2009 we had to put her into a nursing rehab. facility because she had become too fragile for us to care for safely. This entailed daily trips to make sure she was being taken care of, usually 3-4 hours each. Last year in Feb., Mom went to be with Jesus. I have spent the past 11 months trying to find the person who use to live in me. The one who is appalled at the cluttered basement that use to be neat and clean before I got so busy I only had time to set things wherever they would fit. I have yet been able to find a place to start……I get very overwhelmed when I go down there. I start each week with the same objection…start somewhere…..but I have yet to begin. I want to get it back to the condition it use to be so the grandkids can go down there and play and I don’t have to worry about them getting hurt. It’s only the end of Jan. and if I can get started I should have it in good shape by summer. Please pray for me…….
I tend to procrastinate on projects where a plan is not clearly laid out. If I can’t see where I’m going and how I’m getting there, I put it off. However, currently I’ve been putting off cleaning my house, too; that is unlike me! Needless to say I’m feeling guilty about it.
My project would be my file cabinet. Lots of paper!!!
I think I already tackled my main project: my book proposal! Woohoo! Next is the neverending task of keeping my bedroom clean. My husband and I both let junk pile up on our dressers, and my job of folding the laundry is my biggest procrastination. This weekend, I want to clean up my dresser and get the laundry put AWAY!
I procrastinate on going through the piles of papers, books, sermon notes, pieces of papers, etc., that sit on our pool table in our gameroom. When our son has friends over to play pool, I move them to my room. When they leave, I move them back. I am so overwhelmed as to how to tackle this project. I don’t know where to store my unread books until I get to them, and I really do want to keep them handy as I plan to read them; what to do with the little pieces of paper which usually have something profound I have heard or a good scripture I plan to memorize–will I ever combine them all into a journal or should I just toss them all, seriously? The rest of my house is pretty well organized. I am stuck in this one area and really want to be victorious. Would love some ideas and input.
My husband and I need to rearrange our kitchen storage. We’ve lived in the house for 2 years now and we need to move things around to where it’s easiest and quickest to use the items. I also have an office upstairs that has become a storage room. I need to clean and purge and reclaim “my” room!
Thanks for your tips Karen and we haven’t sent our Christmas thank yous yet either. That’s a project for tomorrow. :)
I need to remove the wallpaper in my kitchen and paint it but with 2 little ones there’s always something else to do and now I’m pregnant so I don’t feel up to it!
This book sounds like it’s just what I need. My house is always in a state of CHAOS. Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome!
My closet NEEDS to be cleaned out but I have consistently procrastinated. It has been a dumping ground for things that don’t have a home.
Hmmm – what DOESN’T need done? The bathtub needs a good scrubbing, but the paperwork that’s piled on the desk is more pressing with tax time here….so the paperwork. Pinky promise?!?
Perfectionism paralysis has been a long term issue for me – even at work. However, the thing that I run into the most – “I don’t have time to finish that right now so why start.” This applies to everything, from big projects to small projects. This April our Church is having a big yard sale – I am bound and determined to clean out some closets and contribute to the sale. Hopefully telling myself that someone else will benefit “big time” will help motivate me.
I’m neck deep in organizational projects and would LOVE to have Karen’s book!!
I want to clean out my bedroom closet and get my bedroom organized.
We moved into a new home in a new city at the beginning of the year. So I still have boxes to unpack, but keep putting it off. I have things unpacked that we need to live (kitchen, bathroom, clothes, etc.) but there are still boxes sitting in my bedroom that I need to unpack. ):
oh I have several closets that need some serious work!! Looking forward to reading the book!! Thank you!
Papers, books and things full of memories need to be sorted and let go of!!!
all in
Piles of paper at work, filing, and disposing of paper is my most pressing need to tackle project.
My project is my pantry. I would love to read this book. Thanks!
When we moved, I worked on getting the rest of the house organized but not my office. We moved to a smaller place so I have more stuff in here, and I need to declutter, throw out, and straighten every shelf. Then it will be easier to work and not procrastinate if I am surrounded by an organized room :)
I am so overwhelmed with my whole house…I’ve prayed about this….I’ve told my family that God has blessed us with this home the least we can do is clean it up. But, it hasn’t happened yet. Please help me pray….for strength …and encourgement to get this done….and a family that will pitch in and help.
Thanks so Much
My whole house. We moved for the 4th time in 4 years a year and a half ago into a smaller house. We were rushed and just stuffed and poked things to get them out of boxes. I need to re-do the whole house now and put things where I can find them.
I definitely have some tendencies toward procrastination. My worst thing I consistently procrastinate on is making a grocery list and going to the store. I get SO overwhelmed and end up just going to the store with no list, buying junk and not having everything I need for meals, thus causing me to make a million “band-aid” trips to the store! Ugh!