Procrastination

I had a blog once, it was started to post silly things and I had a partner in crime but it was one of those partners who simply serves to give some momentum at the beginning by offering excitement and a strew of ideas. Once of those who has only ideas that never come into fruition.  I let it stop me.

 

Today, the sun is shining. There was a two way stop and a woman waited her turn once to many times, she honked her horn and threw up her hands. Coffee at the shop is better than my coffee at home. I think my coffee grind is too course. Maybe when the water runs through it, it flows too easily, it needs to be slowed down. The water needs to savor the moment and stop to smell the coffee. That is, if it is going to make a nice, full body roast.

 

What am I writing for? I’m here in the coffee shop with many aspiring strangers. It appears that the majority of them are on their computers, working. Some are in pairs but most are solo. It appears one is awaiting a friend and there are two gentlemen reading books, the other ten people are on laptops. Why are we here? I’d assume that most of us are here for the SIDE-HUSTLE.

 

Should I be at home, playing my guitar? Writing songs? It’s funny thinking about art and what proportion of art is the craft itself and what amount of sharing is required. The tree falls in the woods but how far will the sound carry? The woods is really what they call “the woodshed” -for those who are unfamiliar with this term, the woodshed is where musicians go to hone their craft in private. A woodshed is far enough removed from the house that a green musician can make noise without being overheard or bothering people. It’s the place where we practice up before we’re ready to expose our work to the world.

 

There was a while where I was learning the trumpet. It was an extremely humiliating and humbling process. The trumpet is loud and unforgiving, living in a house with 4 other people meant that it was fairly unlikely that I would have the house to myself. There are two reasons why I do not like to practice trumpet while someone can hear me.

a) I wouldn’t want to listen to it myself, I wouldn’t wish that racket on anyone

b) If I know someone can hear me, I have less patience to repeatedly go over the challenge areas

Why? because that’s just about as irritating as sound can get. This means that if I am to play trumpet while people are in the house, I will play the things I feel are least annoying and that means I am going over the things that are least in need of attention.

c) embarrassment

 

So, what are we doing at the coffee shop?

a) here to focus

b) the coffee is better

 

I have an addiction to self help talks. I’ve moved from beating myself into shape to instead looking at the bat and trying to decipher why it swings at me and why I don’t move out of it’s way. This year, I’ve been toying with the game of letting things go. I have high standards, high expectations and am emotionally attached to the outcomes that I feel I have control over. You’d think that this is a recipe for high achievement.. however, for me, high expectation tends to cause fear of failure which surfaces as procrastination.

 

OH LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT PROCRASTINATION

Here’s a concept, procrastination is an emotional attachment to outcome. Does that make sense? (The problem with writing is that I don’t get the facial cues that tell me whether or not to explain further.)

Do you beat yourself up about your procrastination habit? Why? Because you don’t get things done on time or you don’t get things done at all?

 

TRY THIS:

Imagine you are two people, one of whom is the person who wishes to get things done; the other is the one who constantly puts it off.  Next, imagine one character is the adult, the other is a child (you can guess who’s who). Children need encouragement, patience, forgiveness and structure. There is a certain degree of discipline that can be useful but it is easy to discourage a child if you give them the impression that they’re not living up to your standards. So, as you would wish to do with a child, treat your procrastinating, high-standards self with love and encouragement and you might just get results. Stop beating yourself up and look at the bat you’re beating yourself up with. You’re beating yourself up because you care about the outcome. Have fun with it, present things that aren’t finished. Just create something anything and SHARE IT! If a project loses momentum, take it off the shelf and put it out into the world. Make way for the next creation. And fuck if you have to procrastinate, write a blog post.

- Jun 2nd, 2018