I finished my list yesterday! I think I found the one thing that's going to transform my life in this area, and that's to do the worst first and focus on only one thing at a time. That's what I did yesterday, and I never even reached the point where I didn't feel like doing my jobs - probably because I got the two baddies done first thing in the morning when I still had energy. By the time afternoon rolled around, the only things left on the list were things I kind of enjoyed anyway, so it was easy to make myself do them.
If you're a procrastinator like me, give this a try and see how it works! Think of it this way - if you have nine easy things on your list and one hard thing that's been stressing you out for awhile, would it feel better to do the one hard thing or the nine easy things?
Oh, I almost forgot one more benefit from doing this. I didn't feel like eating in the late afternoon, which is when I most feel like breaking my boundaries.
I think the reason for this is that usually I still have my worst jobs left by late afternoon, and I feel like eating because I know I should do those jobs but don't want to. Since I had already done those crummy jobs by late afternoon yesterday, there were no feelings of guilt or dread, so I was able to just relax and enjoy life - and since the negative emotion (stress) wasn't there, I didn't feel like eating.
Anyway, I'm excited about this new idea - we'll see if it continues to work.
2 comments:
Barb,
I have really enjoyed (although I'm not sure that is the right word...been convicted by?) your recent posts on procrastination and doing what you dread first. I've really started to see recently (last 3 days) how that has impacted me at home and at work - the fact that I let linger those things that I most don't want to do. I started to try and change that habit yesterday at work and I'm going to work on it today at home. I think it could really make a huge impact on my life as I look at it.
Julie (from the TW forums)
Julie, That's exciting. I think it's really going to change me, too. The funny thing is that I've been having my kids do this for the past eight years with school, but it never occurred to me to try it myself. When my 17-year old was nine, he was having trouble getting his school work done each day (we homeschool). So we set up a schedule for him where he did his worst subject first, his second worst subject second, and so forth. That solved the problem, so I had my two girls start doing the same thing. Since then we haven't had any problems with them getting their school work done. I'm going to try it again today! Barb
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