“Do these 7 things and you will be much more productive!” “5 ways to immediately get more time in your life!” Anyone else have titles like these pop out at you are your social media feeds? They all sound so great and I certainly appreciate help in becoming more organized. I love making a list of things to do. The problem is that so often that’s where it stops. As I was writing this post, I kept thinking about a scene from a Seinfeld episode where he’s at the car rental place where he reserved a car. The place took the reservation, but they did not hold the reservation–and THAT is really is the most important part of the reservation. That’s me with my To Do lists. I make the To Do list–I just don’t actually want to DO what’s on the To Do list.
I make my list at the beginning of each week with the current date (To Do Week of _________).This past month and a half–I haven’t even had to start a new one because I have gotten so little done–I just keep scratching out the date and putting the current one. In looking at my list I realize there are 4 things that have carried over from the past several weeks and I can’t seem to make myself want to make any effort towards getting them done.
- Purge Last Years Paperwork.
I keep a file cabinet of receipts of bills paid and things we’ve purchased. Every year in January I purge out the previous year. It’s now March. I cannot summon anything in me to want to do this–except that every time I head to the closet to add more receipts– well, there is no more room in the inn. - Organize Our Photos.
Remember the good ole days when you took pictures on a camera that you had to load the film in? Then when you had taken your 24 pictures you dropped it off at the local film developing place and got back a stack of pictures–half of which you had to throw out because they were no good. Now, I take about 75 pictures of the same thing over and over again and then I never go back and delete the ones I don’t need. Over the past 15 years that has created quite a backlog of photos to go through. This project is a bit of a Mount Everest endeavor for me and I know I can’t get it done in a week–but I feel like I need to at least get moving forward–make it the “first base camp” so to speak. - Clean And Repair The Bumper Pool Table I Picked Up on the Roadside.
I love anything free. I will often pick up junk from other people’s trash or things folks have set out on the roadside. Basically, if I think I can clean it up and fix it–I’ll grab it and either keep it or sell it. A few weeks ago a local church had set out a very well loved and used bumper pool table. It looks pretty rustic right now, but with a little elbow grease and a few minor repairs I know we will enjoy it. The thing is– I know it’s going to probably take more time and effort than I thought. So, I’ve procrastinated and procrastinated even getting started. - Catch Up On My Bible Study Homework.
I LOVE doing Bible studies and I sign up every Fall and Spring. But, I have to admit that I am never very good at keeping up with the homework. Most studies will have 5 days of homework that probably take between 20-30 minutes each to do–not horribly oppressive. Until you get behind one, two, or three days. I don’t want to rush through it and miss the important things God is trying to teach me(like stick to your commitments sister)–but, I know I need to at least make an effort, and sit thyself in chair and do it.
These 4 items have become monkey’s on my back. I loathe not being able to cross them off week after week. I have heard the phrase “eat that frog” come up a time or two in my social media perusing. Basically the concept is–if you HAD to eat a frog today (I don’t even wanna think about that) you would probably choose to do it first and get it out of the way, so you can move on with your life. I think the person that came up with this metaphor is not into the Love and Logic way of helping me correct my wrong behavior. The image of eating a frog seems like a lot of negative reinforcement so, instead I’m going to try to think of my undone projects as chocolate–Reece’s peanut butter cups to be specific. If I had 4 Reece’s peanut butter cups I HAD to eat today–you’d better believe I would gobble them up as fast as I could and not think twice about it. I don’t know if this visualization will help me get these items done or not–maybe I’ll just put eating chocolate on my To Do list and mark it down as DONE.