The Best Time for a FRESH START is Always: RIGHT NOW

Someone on the CBC this morning called today “the REAL start-of-the-new-year.”  So true.  The day after Labour Day, the unofficial end of summer, the first day of school.  We’ve had our first cool weather in months, suddenly there are yellow leaves on the ground, and this morning it even smells like autumn.  Today begins the sickening and deceptively short slide into December (I was disgusted to receive my first Christmas catalogue a couple of weeks ago, in mid-August.  Fuck off, retailers!!).

I REALLY treated the whole summer like a working holiday.  It’s time to re-establish a routine.  Looking back to the previous post, I see that I tried to do that in August, too.  I also REALLY want to become more efficient with my time so that I can start practicing regularly and taking music lessons again.

Here’s the plan:

• Exercise, Shower and Dress before breakfast with the kids at 7:30am (no more half-asleep-until-noon Johnny).
• one To-Do List.
• make a Daily Plan, every day.
• I can play only after my Daily Plan is complete!

Some good habits to help me achieve all this:

• schedule regular breaks – get up from the computer and do something physical.
• close email apps when I’m supposed to be working.
• keep a list of “personal stuff to do later,” instead of interrupting myself when I think of it.
• use the power of FOCUS; avoid unnecessary multi-tasking.
• going back and reading older posts in this blog is proving helpful, too.

Starting now.  Wish me luck.

-Johnny 0.

Update, August 2010

The past six months have been pretty good.  I’m getting the work done, but my work habits have not progressed beyond “passable.”  July in particular was a set-back.  For some reason, I got almost nothing done.  Maybe because I knew I was ahead for the year (I’m not anymore).  Maybe because there was a lot going on in my avocational pursuits – I had a concert to plan for my band, for example.  But it’s not like I didn’t have time to work on those things outside of work hours.

I need to get back on the wagon, and remember that “it’s all my time.”  I could make a decent living working 4 hours per day, and put the rest of my time towards things that I say are important to me.  Up til now, if you had statistics on how I spend my time, you’d think that Facebook, Youtube and email are the things I hold most dear.

Procrastination.  Grave.  Opportunities.

I have to remind myself of a few things:

• I don’t get paid for sitting at my desk, I get paid for doing the work.
• I can finish the work early and spend the rest of the day however I want, guilt-free.
• It’s all my time.
• I have plenty of time between 9am and 5pm to make a living, keep fit, practice bass and write games, if only I would take an organized and disciplined approach to my time!  *kicks self in ass*

Time to get to work.

-Johnny 0.

Cycle Time: Keep It Short

I seem to have gotten my procrastination cycle down to about 1 day, in most cases.   I.e. if I piss away the morning, I realize what I’m doing and I get back on track by the afternoon. This process used to be weeks long. I think, rather than trying to eliminate procrastination altogether (unrealistic?), keeping the cycle time down to less than a day is a good goal.  And not having to deal with it every day, of course.

Hello. My Name’s Johnny and I’m a Procrastinator.

Hello. My name’s Johnny and I’m a procrastinator.

(“Hello Johnny.”)

It has been a week since I worked on my top priority.

At first, I had a lot of little things to get done.  Important things.  I was just going to get them out of the way, and then I would get right onto priority #1, the Big Project for the Big Client.  But after a few days, I have to admit, I was looking for little things to do, anything that seemed productive and would let me put off that Big Project a little longer.  Oh, and I’d forgotten to look ahead in my calendar, forgotten that I’d booked Friday off for my son’s birthday.

Now it’s a week later, the Big Project is due ASAP and I’ve barely started.  Not only that but, perhaps predictably, other urgent high-priority things are popping up.  I’m behind the eight ball now.

I’m gonna go re-start that Big Project right now.  I know that the hardest part is getting started, that once I have some momentum the Big Project won’t seem so big.  With luck, I can get it finished before anyone starts screaming for my head.

And I’ll never, never procrastinate again.

Thank-you.

(*applause*)

The P-words

I realize that I am always procrastinating on something. When I focus on a particular task, I can make progress. But eventually, I become aware that I am avoiding something else. Is this evidence of an inveterate procrastinator? Or just a sign that my life is too full, that there are too many demands on my time?

As long as I’m only procrastinating on the less-important stuff, I should be okay. I guess they call that “prioritizing,” don’t they? Which I’d call the opposite of procrastinating.

 

Johnny… is procrastinating

I’m procrastinating. Since I woke up at 4:00 this morning (not on purpose), I have found 15 different things to do besides the one thing that I have to finish today. Enough already! It’s 12:45pm, I still have half a day (assuming I don’t fall asleep at the keyboard (A.A.T.K.B.)). I now invoke a “sprint to the finish.” Starting…

…now!