Monday, May 19, 2008

Anti-Procrastination Night

So, tonight at roughly ten p.m.-ish, I set aside some time to catch up on all those little things that have been on my "to-do" list but I haven't had time to finish. Don't you hate those? Every time you walk by, it's like they are taunting you: "You'll NEVER get around to finishing me!" Tonight was officially "anti-procrastination night." Or should I say, last night and this morning was officially "anti-procrastination night" since it is two a.m. now.

What have I learned from this experience:

1) You can get a lot done in a little time without distractions.
2) If you are working late, turn on as many lights as possible--it will boost your energy a little bit.
3) Act like casino management: hide the clock until you're done.
4) The little nagging things don't take as long as you expect. Case in point: there has been a stain on my carpet that has been driving me batty, but I just have not put it at the top of my "urgent!-these-things-need-to-get-done-right-away" list. Consequently, I have walked past that stain every day for a month and it has added a lot of stress to my life. Tonight, I sat down with my handy-dandy little green machine and--I kid you not--in less than three minutes, the stain and stress were gone. If I had just taken three minutes out of my schedule to attend to the stain, I might have experienced fewer headaches in a month's time.

I should have learned this lesson long ago when I first found the FlyLady online ("anti-procrastination night" is actually a variation of her "anti-procrastination day"). FlyLady's mantra is: "you can do anything in 15 minutes." Try it: it's true! I've cleaned an entire kitchen from top to bottom in less than 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, your office desk can be completely cleared. In 15 minutes, you can pick up your entire house. Set a timer and be surprised, I tell ya. I don't really follow the FlyLady plan, but there are lots of tips that I've incorporated into my family life and my business life.

The moral of the story is "things don't take as long as you think" and "never start a blog post at 2 a.m." :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So, what you're saying is - you want to come to my house and have an anti-procrastinating party here?!?! WOW, how NICE!!!

Megan said...

Sure, if it's all fun and no cleaning! :)