Perfectionism is one of my core issues.  It seems that procrastination should be the opposite of perfectionism because I am so deliberately not doing what I should. But procrastination is a type of perfectionism because it allows me to avoid the old sink or swim routine. So I guess I’ll have to start swimming if I want to get to the shore.

Other thoughts about procrastination:

1.  From smitty (havingcourageto change): “No Time for Procrastination!”:

It’s procrastinating weather…. so I will share snippets of my moving experience, and quote from the May 24th EA reading.

“Remembering the ruts and holes I used to dig myself into, I have finally realized that [much of my anxiety] is caused by my character defect of procrastination. I wait until the last moment to do all the things I have been planning to do for several months.”

At the end, like in a move,  everything undone calls out for completion.The resulting guilt is not worth the indulgence of procrastination. I have accepted that I will not accomplish all the goals I wanted to achieve.

Our move is teaching me to  keep my “job list” realistic and to do the bestI can with it.   Moving, and letting go, is also teaching me that when I ask for help I am less likely to procrastinate!

Procrastination can lead me one rut closer to my deep hole of anxiety, guilt and sleeplessness. Let me begin  a few things today, big or small, and be grateful for each accomplishment. 

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” Don Marquis

2   From Grace (Letting Go-Finding Hope through Al-Anon): “Procrastination and manipulation”:

Sometimes my procrastination to try new things works for me. Especially when it comes to electronics and all things computer related. If you jump too quickly the creators haven’t worked out all the bugs yet and you in up enmeshed is problems no one is sure how to solve.

I usually just hang back for the 2nd or 3rd generations before making the leap. In the case of my phone it died and over night I leaped into the iPhone.  It was the 3G and free because 4G was  the new thing. I will probably never be cutting edge in the electronic world.

In the spiritual realm I am more cutting edge. The lessons I have learned from the program have shot me so far in the future it is mind boggling. I have come so far from the way I use to think about everything I can’t even imagine how I lived the way I did before.

3.  From Leo Babauta (zenhabits): “How to Fail at Habits”:

The following excerpt has 2 of the 8 ways we fail at habits—read the article to read the rest–

How to Fail at Habits

I failed at creating new habits repeatedly. Here’s what I did, and what most people also do:

1.  Take on multiple habits at once. We have lots of things we want to change, so we try to change them all at once. Of course, this spreads our focus and energy thin, so that we can’t give our entire focus to any one habit. Habits are hard to change, and spreading yourself thin is a good way to make sure you fail.

2.  Bite off more than you can chew. Whether you do one habit or many at a time, try to do as much with each habit as possible, so that it takes up a lot of energy and seems really hard. Don’t run for 5 minutes, try doing 30. That way it’ll be a big chunk of your day that will get pushed to tomorrow when other urgent things come up, it will take a lot of your physical and mental energy, and it’ll be something you dread doing because it’s so difficult. Don’t meditate for 5 minutes, meditate for 60. Do 90 minutes of yoga. Change your entire diet all at once. These are excellent ways to fail.

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