Why Not Today by The FlyLady, Marla Cilley
We have lived our lives up until now thriving on procrastination. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that we work better under the stress of time restraints. Well I am here to tell you, that we are sick and tired of doing this. Our belief that this is how we get things done is just crazy. It makes us sick and it robs us to time that we could do other things.
When was the last time you were caught in the bathroom, because you did not replenish the toilet paper, when you had noticed that you were running low. How about needing to buy gas for the car, but saying,"Oh I can do that later, when I have more time." and later doesn't come. Then you have to make a special trip or be late, because you might run out of gas. This attitude has got to stop.
I looked up the word Procrastination today in our huge dictionary. It means to put off until tomorrow. Here are some synonyms for the word: adjourn, retard, protract, and prolong.
Prolong: This one really hit home. We prolong the doing of a chore. This means we sit, look and dread doing it; when it would only take us a few minutes to accomplish the task to start with. So we prolong the task.
We procrastinate about the most simple of things: Putting our clothes in the closet when we take them off, going through the mail when it comes in and doing the dishes when we are finished with a meal. Have you even noticed that most of the time our procrastination becomes our HOT SPOTS? They are the piles in our bedrooms, on our kitchen counters and in our cars. I can hear us now. Oh, I can do that later.
When we hear those words come into our brains or out of our mouths; RED FLAGS should start flying. Take notice of how many times a day you say this and stop doing it. Now that you know better, you can do better. We have to retrain ourselves.
This is where My Sweet Darling's Principle comes into play.
The, "DO IT NOW PRINCIPLE!"
I have learned so much from him. As you know, we usually have married our direct opposites. Why this happens, who knows, but a messy person will marry a neat person most of the time. When Robert gets home, he goes through the mail immediately, signs orders and gets them ready to send back in tomorrow's mail, he opens all the bills, removes all the chaff and places them under the a brass leaf(dogwood blossom)on our desk and he throws away all the junk mail. Then he lays my mail on my
computer, so I have to deal with it too. You know what happens with it. I have little colonies of mail here and there. Unopened and unprocessed. (confession time again): "I can handle that later." This
is not funny, to me or to Robert.
When he undresses, clothes don't get throw on a chair to deal with later! He hangs up the clothes that can be worn again, examines the collars to see if they need treated with a laundry pre-treater (Shout)
and then places them in the dirty clothes basket for light or dark clothes. He sorts as he removes his clothes; one more thing that doesn't have to be done. It saves me time. Have I ever told you how
blessed I am. He is such a good example for me. I have watched him over the last eleven years. This "DO IT NOW PRINCIPLE" is a way of life for him.
If we were to establish this habit, we would do away with the thief of our time, Procrastination. As I have developed this learned skill in some areas of my life, I have gotten rid of the messes and the piles
that seem to take on a life of their own.
So today, let's vow to not let procrastination steal our time ever again. Whenever you hear yourself say, "I can do that later", let those words be the cue to "DO IT NOW!" Set your timer and have some fun!
Do it Now; Don't wait! Get things done in 2008!
For more help getting rid of your CHAOS; check out her website and join her free mentoring group at www.FlyLady.net or her book, Sink Reflections published by Bantam and her New York Times Best Selling book, Body Clutter published by Fireside. Copyright 2008 Marla Cilley Used by permission in this publication.
