Ansa on the East Coast Trail a couple of days ago. Click twice to enbiggen and you'll see her smiling.
I wrote about procrastination before. Here.
Things do get done. I was pleased to see that, yes, all that had been 'deferred' then has been taken care of. Eventually. But I find the tasks on my current list might well exceed my life span. Imagine how important this list will be to my heiresses when I pop off this mortal coil. Like, not at all. That is, if they could even find it.
So a fresh approach was needed. To make me feel better. And to see if it worked.
First of all I think the list itself was a problem. It overwhelmed me. And it all needed to be done. No escaping that. Some of it was idiotic you'd think. Like change my tires from winter to summer ones. How on earth could that be a 'task'. Well out here on the edge of the Atlantic, it's a task. The guy who changes my tires is 40km from here. And you don't just run in and out. It's a civilized thing. His wife might come out with a pot of tea and you visit. And then Tireman needs some bonding time with me. He's a collector of old gorgeous cars. And he shares his passion with a few of his fans, me included. You'd have to see his latest baby. 1959 Ford. Original upholstery. He's also a pet whisperer, you should see him with Ansa. But I digress.
Then there's a couple of visits along the way on tire day to friends who know my car and I can't just pass their houses. It's rude. So there's the whole day gobbled up to change the tires.
But I found what I have to do is transfer items every day from the long, long to do list on to a shorter list. And the daily shorter list gets done. I always include a task I was avoiding and then some 'fun' stuff which also needed attention. That included sorting the winter and summer clothes out. I have limited space here so if I don't want to be running around in an Aran sweater in a heat wave that must be done before summer kicks in. And there's my plot in the community garden which needs attention. And the Tely 10 training....
You get the picture. My daily shortlist is manageable. But if I look at the long list, I usually wind up doing nothing. Frightened.
Because in some ways, still, I'm 3 years old
