For me procrastination is right up there with good ol’ lack of confidence and I’d say they’re probably about equal/possibly intertwined, even.

Recently though, I’ve been able to implement a system that’s working pretty damn well! I set out a daily to-do list for the upcoming week (leaving a few spots blank in case something comes up) and then just…do it. At first I wasn’t entirely confident it would work, but just there’s just something about trying to go to bed knowing not everything’s been crossed off for the day that really hits me deep.

That being said. So far it’s kept me on track to where I got an A on the final for my TEFL course, set medical appointments, started paying more attention to this site, etc. BUT it could not get me to finish my EPIK application lesson plan!

Then it happened: heavy rain = office building flooding; and the next thing I know I have Weds through Friday off. What a dream, right? Nope. Turns out that with all that extra time I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. There was no sense of immediate urgency to get the lesson plan done even though I was anxious to get it done. I’d start doing research to prep and then just put it down and start doing something else: i.e. calling friends, working on roleplays, lunch with my mom, and of course the almighty NETFLIX. I was literally doing everything under the rising son instead of working on this lesson plan because, “I don’t need to have it until next Wednesday“.

BUT, BUT, BUT. You know that strange thing where you either push out the product at the last minute or randomly get the bug and start without prompting? Well, I’m glad to say I’m moving farther away from the first and more towards the second track which is exactly what happened today. I went to my dog sitting gig without my EPIK application materials and absolutely no intent of working on it. Somehow though, I ended up opening Google Docs, opening some tabs to better understand what they’re looking for, and hashed out a rough draft to polish once I get back home.

Was it what I was expecting? Obviously not, but it happened and I felt like a weight was taken off my shoulders because I’d actually produced something meaty!

I think procrastination is one of those things that clearly never fully goes away because we experience it with different tasks for wildly different reasons. I tend to work better when I’ve mapped things out, but if something drastically changes (such as no work for three days) it clearly throws me off my game. The answer isn’t the same for everyone and I know it’s probably not the best to rely on that efficiency bug to bite you in the ass, but isn’t it great how once you get started sometimes you just turn into the energizer bunny and start steam rolling through stuff? Even right now as I’m typing this I’m also resizing my photo to put on my application.

No? Maybe it’s just me.