Purposeful procrastination.

Normally I score pretty high on executive function, but I have one counterproductive (or maybe it's contraproductive?) quirk:  the more ideas I have for new, fun, fulfilling projects I could embark on , the less likely I am to do any of them.   And the more attractive it feels just to move forward on ordinary daily things, like making dinner or doing another round of school planning.  

Yes, that's right:  the more exciting, challenging, and fun things I could be doing, the less likely I am to get around to any of them.  I become too paralyzed by choices even to procrastinate appropriately.

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I think this year I am going to try to procrastinate something every day.  I'm doing it right now:  I have a history exam to write, and also the whole week's upcoming school to plan, and instead I am forcing myself to use one of my Pomodoros (let me google that for you) on this blog post.  Because, naturally, one of the fun and exciting and challenging projects is returning to blogging.

More challenging than exciting right now, I think, but it's there.   

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What are all the projects that float around my head making demands on me, that I keep not getting around to because I feel bad about the ones left unchosen? 

Well, there are all the languages I am sort-of-trying to learn:  Swedish and Greek to support two of my children who are learning them; Latin for the students I'm actually facilitating; the Somali I started to learn and haven't touched for a few months but that I see on signage all around me reminding me that it's just a flashcard pack away; Italian and Spanish because maybe I will get to use one or both on an upcoming trip; and always, always, the French that I want to keep nudging asymptotically closer to fluency and correctness.   Not to mention the ones I've never started learning but am secretly intrigued by (I'm looking at you, Basque).   I'm not sure what will happen next, but I made myself a little language tracker for the time being, one block to be filled in each day I spend time working on improving the language:

Then there are all the books I want to read.  I still have a giant pile of unread books on my nightstand, sorted into fiction and nonfiction.  Last year I swore I'd read (or give away) the books I already had before buying any more (physical) books, and unfortunately this did nothing more than to instill in me a sense of obligation that I resisted, so that last year I wound up completing FEWER books than probably in any other year of my life since I was two years old.   I now think that perhaps I need something akin to the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball, but for catching up on my unread books.  It would go something like this:

1. stack my unread fiction books from shortest to longest regardless of interest rate sense of importance, "goodness," or how long I've had it on the shelf
2. pay minimum attention to all the books except the smallest
3. put all my available reading time towards the smallest book until I finish it OR give it away
4. repeat until each book is read OR given away

I've also got a few pending projects regarding my mental health and relationships---nothing urgent, just me working through some philosophies and priorities, and doing the necessary self-examination to make good decisions.  Mostly I do this by carrying around half-finished legal pads, hauling one out when I feel like working on it and have a few minutes.  I probably don't have to do anything more to keep these in mind.  The paper pads are enough. 

I have other creative projects in mind that I don't want to get into here on the blog today, but suffice it to say that they are vague enough that I haven't invested deeply in them.  I think that these will rise to the top naturally as they become more important to me---if they become more important to me.   So I am going to try not to let them bother me anymore.  I think I will ritually inscribe them on a page in my bullet-journal-type-thing as "Something that I have decided not to act upon yet"---perhaps knowing that they are there, whenever I am ready to think about them some more, will free me from the tethers they have kept on my attention.

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But for all, any of this, to work---I literally have to procrastinate more.  It will not happen unless I decide, day in and day out, to spend twenty minutes on something fun instead of twenty minutes on a have to.  And, crucially, I have to pick one at a time, and not let any feelings of guilt about not picking the others derail me. 

Nor the sense of having "more important" things to do. 

Because I am never, ever, ever going to run out of important things I should be doing.  I will leave some undone.   I won't do everything I should do.

And, having established the kind of woman I think I am, there's nothing left but to haggle over the cost.