Blue Monkey's "Stop-Faffing-Start-Doing" Diary

Blue_Monkey

My name is Blue Monkey and I'm a procrastinator.

I'm getting more and more frustrated with myself over this and it's actually making me miserable. I seem to live in this world of good intentions that never happen which turns into me beating myself up for not doing all the things I think I should be.

There are things I want to do and achieve with my life, both on a day-to-day and more longer-term basis, but my faffing around is holding me back.

I’ve been meaning to go for a run since Sunday.
I’ve been meaning to do the food shopping since Sunday.
I’ve been meaning to pick up my jacket from the dry cleaners since Saturday.
I’ve been meaning to mop the floor since Saturday.

It’s now Thursday and I’ve not done any of this lot. And it’s not like I haven’t had time – it was a public holiday here on Monday (I live in Australia) and I worked from home yesterday and today! Hell, I only jumped in the shower at 7.30pm tonight and got dressed because I knew OH was due home any minute ...........

At 30 years old I need to pull my socks up. I feel like if I don’t get sorted now, I perhaps never will; my life will be chaos and fun stuff and good opportunities will pass me by. Live is there to be lived, not sit on the sofa in jimmies. I want to feel like I am living, not just letting it pass me by.

So. This has got to stop. I’m hoping to use this forum as a kind of diary to get me motivated to start getting the best out of my time and myself. I need to get a grip and stop faffing the days away. I figure if I put my laziness, bad habits and unproductivity out there in the big wide world, I might feel “shamed” into sorting it out . I’m not sure if anyone will even feel inclined to read this, but feel free to share your motivational tips and tricks, I’m all ears...

I intend to make a To Do List of the small little goals I hope to achieve the following day. They may sound trivial and silly to you guys, but I firmly believe that these simple bits will help me feel better about myself.

I think a lot it comes down to discipline, and I hope it will eventually become good habit or just “the norm”... My main Areas for Improvement are time-keeping, weight, fitness, home organisation.

Tomorrow’s List – Friday 18 June 2010

• Get up when alarm goes off at 7am, rather than snoozing until just before 8am.
• Make lunch.
• Get to work on time; leaving at 8.15am should give me plenty of time to walk.
• Take a lunch break and spend at least 30 mins outside in the fresh air.
• Buy hair dye
• Plan meals, write shopping list
• Go food shopping after work
• Dye hair

PS. What does this have to do with MoneySaving? Well... If I get up early enough to make lunch, I don’t spent $10 a day on a sandwich. If I do the food shopping, we don’t eat out as much. If I get up early enough to walk to work, I don’t need to buy a bus ticket. If I actually train for the City 2 Surf run, I won’t waste the $60 entry fee and probably won’t need to pay for a physio to sort out my damaged feet/legs if I do it without training. I manage to save a good chunk of my salary each month, but my “spending money” often gets frittered away needlessly, so hopefully my newfound productiveness/organisation/motivation will help quash that too! :T

Bitsy_Beans

I find the computer tends to stop me getting stuff done. I have a couple of hours most afternoons in which to get housework etc completed. I try and force myself to get these sorts of jobs done FIRST before switching on the 'puter If I did it the other way round NOTHING would get done. I could spend hours on here

Good luck - hope you can clear at least some of your list

CupOfChai

Good on you, and I hope you can stick at it and achieve what you want to . It's such a good feeling when you can look at your list and see you got everything done.

2boysmum

Blue Monkey, I am a procastinator too! I find that if I write myself a to do list I can get most of what I want to do, otherwise I would just sit all day wondering what I should be doing and thinking about a million other things, have to agree with Bitsy Beans, the internet has a lot to answer for, I'll go onto the computer with the intention of looking at maybe my online banking next thing I know 2 hours have gone by. I will follow your post and see if you get any good suggestions to help you out and maybe we will get something done together!

mazinmouse

Good Luck with everything - I'm an ADDer so I was born to procrastinate - so I also understand what you're saying. I find I get more done on work days as things have to be done by deadlines before and after work to fit the jobs in. Weekends can be pretty much a washout!

missymoo81

Blue monkey, you and I are twins I swear (give or take a couple of years!!)!! You sound exactly like me. I end up getting frustrated and miserable because I haven't done things. And like you it's not like I haven't got time, I just lack motivation..... massively!!! I'll start out the month with such good intentions.... diet.... clean house.....not spending money..... working on my degree before the last minute etc etc. Your post has just brought it home to me that, exactly what I do all month, is..... nothing!!! And I really need to do something about it. I am a great to do lister. But half of it never gets done if it's daily. So I started to do it weekly, which seemed to work out better, as even if I leave it til the last minute to do, it more often than not gets done. I will be following your thread, if you dont mind, and no doubt borrowing tips on how you get yourself motivated. Mind you, right now I am laying on my sofa, in my jarmies at 18.30, when it is scorching outside, the garden needs seeing to and the kitchens a mess!!! Just lack motivation.... and yes am getting frustrated with myself right now!!

Keep up the good thoughts and keep posting.

Missy

Errata

Good luck - and to all you procrastinators out there 'Things may not change in any meaninful way until you understand why you procrastinate' What benefit do you gain from procrastinating ? Is your procrastinating hurting anyone else - if so, why ? etc etc etc

Blue_Monkey

Wow - thanks for the replies! It's great to know I'm not the only faffer.

Bitsy Beans & 2boysmum - I couldn't agree more that the bloody computer is too much of a distraction for me. I can easily spend hours on the laptop looking up crap. I would even go as far as to say that I could be an internet addict . Even when I haven't got stuff to look at purposefully, it can still zap whole days of my life up.

Mazinmouse - I don't really know enough about the specifics of ADD properly IYSWIM. How do you deal with it?

Missymoo - Yep, we sound like kindred spirits. And I'm liking the sound of your weekly list. OH and a friend, both have told me, on seperate occasions that they think I can be too hard on myself and I did think that I might get down on myself if I don't complete a whole day's worth of To Do's... I'll see how I get on first. I'm not sure I'll have many tips as such, I guess I just got to the point where I was ashamed of myself; I went to visit a friend who had a 4 month old baby, I arrived at hers just after midday. She'd got herself and the baby dressed, she had make up on, hair done nicely, taken the baby out for a walk in the woods, prepared a lasagne and an apple crumble and was just sorting some bits for lunch. The house was also spotless and I was in complete awe of her. She has always been v v v organised, but it just made me feel ridiculously lazy. And slothliness isn't a nice virtue in my book.



Today's list so far:

• [strike]Get up when alarm goes off at 7am, rather than snoozing until just before 8am.[/strike][strike]
  
• Make lunch.
• Get to work on time; leaving at 8.15am should give me plenty of time to walk.
• Take a lunch break and spend at least 30 mins outside in the fresh air.
• Buy hair dye[/strike]
• Plan meals, write shopping list
• Go food shopping after work
• Dye hair

I'm doing alright so far today... I managed to squeeze a couple of other extra-curricular productive bits in there too (enquired about Thing At Ikea being in stock, arranged lunch with friends on Sunday, chased up my expenses at work, walked home from work as well as to work). Walking to work was ace, took the same time as the bus and it was a lovely sunny day. Deffo doing that more often. So when I'm contemplating getting the bus, I will try to remember how much I enjoy the walk and that it doesn't take any longer to do so.

3 fairly meaty things left and I don't feel like doing any of them. The thing making me go for it though is that it would just be plain embarrassing to fall at the first hurdle and not even complete Day 1.

OH is due home in about an hour, so that should give me time to sort out a shopping list and go to the supermarket. Even now I'm thinking of things I could do instead (I am the Queen of Putting Things Off), and whilst they are productive in their own rights (washing, mop floors, sort home paperwork out, pay phone bill) none of them need to be done as much as the food shopping. I'm also out early tomorrow so won't have time to dye my hair in the morning, so that must also be done tonight. I also know that if I put a washload on now there's a chance I'll forget about it :cool: and OH will notice it and start hanging it out, which really isn't fair after his long day.

Shopping list and supermarket here I come.

Even though I really can't be arsed.

But I will feel better when it's done and it will make OH happy to come in to full cupboards. :rotfl:

Have a lovely day peeps,
BM

PS. I'll pop back later and will confirm that those 3 things are done and dusted.

**confuzzled**

Blue_Monkey wrote: »

Missymoo - Yep, we sound like kindred spirits. And I'm liking the sound of your weekly list. OH and a friend, both have told me, on seperate occasions that they think I can be too hard on myself and I did think that I might get down on myself if I don't complete a whole day's worth of To Do's... I'll see how I get on first. I'm not sure I'll have many tips as such, I guess I just got to the point where I was ashamed of myself; I went to visit a friend who had a 4 month old baby, I arrived at hers just after midday. She'd got herself and the baby dressed, she had make up on, hair done nicely, taken the baby out for a walk in the woods, prepared a lasagne and an apple crumble and was just sorting some bits for lunch. The house was also spotless and I was in complete awe of her. She has always been v v v organised, but it just made me feel ridiculously lazy. And slothliness isn't a nice virtue in my book.
Yeah but I bet what she wasn't telling you was that baby had her awake at 4am wanting to be changed/fed and then refused to go back to sleep so she got on with stuff, then to get baby to have a nap she took it for a walk and was probably preparing lunch as she knew baby would be awake/cranky soon and wanting to be fed while she should be making lunch. as for the make up, I imagine its a feel good factor thing, I wear make up more if I'm feeling miserable or trying to cover up the dark circles under the eyes;):p:D and the only reason baby was dressed was because either she's a clean freak and changes baby everytime it pukes or baby was in it's vest until 30mins before you arrived so it wouldn't mess its clothes up:p


Today's list so far:

• [strike]Get up when alarm goes off at 7am, rather than snoozing until just before 8am.[/strike][strike]
  
• Make lunch.
• Get to work on time; leaving at 8.15am should give me plenty of time to walk.
• Take a lunch break and spend at least 30 mins outside in the fresh air.
• Buy hair dye[/strike]
• Plan meals, write shopping list
• Go food shopping after work
• Dye hair

I'm doing alright so far today... I managed to squeeze a couple of other extra-curricular productive bits in there too (enquired about Thing At Ikea being in stock, arranged lunch with friends on Sunday, chased up my expenses at work, walked home from work as well as to work). Walking to work was ace, took the same time as the bus and it was a lovely sunny day. Deffo doing that more often. So when I'm contemplating getting the bus, I will try to remember how much I enjoy the walk and that it doesn't take any longer to do so.

3 fairly meaty things left and I don't feel like doing any of them. The thing making me go for it though is that it would just be plain embarrassing to fall at the first hurdle and not even complete Day 1.

OH is due home in about an hour, so that should give me time to sort out a shopping list and go to the supermarket. Even now I'm thinking of things I could do instead (I am the Queen of Putting Things Off), and whilst they are productive in their own rights (washing, mop floors, sort home paperwork out, pay phone bill) none of them need to be done as much as the food shopping. I'm also out early tomorrow so won't have time to dye my hair in the morning, so that must also be done tonight. I also know that if I put a washload on now there's a chance I'll forget about it :cool: and OH will notice it and start hanging it out, which really isn't fair after his long day.

Shopping list and supermarket here I come.

Even though I really can't be arsed.

But I will feel better when it's done and it will make OH happy to come in to full cupboards. :rotfl:

I'm the same as you too:o the only way I've foudn to combat it is every sunday I sit down and force myself to do a weekly ToDo list..it has anything and everything I can think of, broken down into 'must do' and 'should do' if I can cross off half the list I'm happy:D anymore than that and I'm ecstatic:rotfl:
Also it helps having notepads dotted around the house...I've found that if my heads swimming with must do this, must do that etc etc I get nothing done as I start something, think of somethin else and then trot off to do that leaving the 1st job and then 2nd job is half done when I go off to the 3rd and so on....a nightmare for hubby! Keeping a notepad/whiteboard in the kitchen is fab so when you know you're out of something you can write it down there and then so when shopping time comes round, the list is already there for you, total lifesaver for me coz I'll happily wait til the cupboards are literally empty before forcing myself to do the shopping..I hate it!!

Good luck with it all and if I think of anything else I'll pop back and share:)

Blue_Monkey

Good one Confuzzled... Although I think she is just one of those superduper people who always just Gets Things Done. She was like it at school too; there was me borrowing someone's homework 30 seconds before it was due in, and she'd done hers seconds after it was dished out... Hey ho.

I am feeling :j as I've completed everything on the list. Ta-dah!

Now for tomorrow. I'm due out for brunch and shopping with the girls at 10.30am, so I've got quite a lot to achieve before then. Will be very chuffed with myself if I can get it all done.


Saturday 19th June 2010

1. 8am start
2. Be out for a run by 8.30am (30 mins of faffing is acceptable on a Saturday morning I feel)
3. Back at 9.15am (I don't run far )
4. Have a snackette and empty the dishwasher.
5. Pick up jacket from dry cleaners.
6. Go to green grocers.

Then the rest of the afternoon is freeeeeeeeee!


As we're out from late arvo on Saturday, not sure when I'll be back to update, but I will be back at some point deffo. I'm thinking about Sunday's To Do List already:

1. Do home admin stuff (file and pay bills etc)
2. Hoover and mop floors.
3. Buy new towels
4. Do some form of exercise. Thinking of a swim.
5. Meet friends for lunch at 2pm.

Rightio, it's gone midnight here, so best be off to bed otherwise there is no way I'll be up for my run. OH is getting up early to watch the football as it will be 4am when the England game is on. I'd like to watch, but am more keen on getting some beauty sleep after the week I've had, so will get OH to fill me in (oo-er missus ) afterwards.

Happy Friday,
BM

Blue_Monkey

Hi :wave:

I just wrote and then lost a big post, grrr...

Anyway... Hope you all had a good weekend? Mine was great, busy busy busy and whilst I didn't tick off much of my list, all is not lost because I feel like it's helped me to redefine/fine tune how I feel about all this stuff. Let me explain:

Saturday was very busy and I was pleased with the way I'd spent my time. It felt productive and as a result I felt happy and positive. It didn't really matter that my list didn't get done because there was no part of the day that was wasted and I enjoyed it all. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't go for a run, but it was perhaps unrealistic to fit it in in the first place. No faffing.

Sunday was also good, but there was no way it would be productive after the boozy late night we had on Saturday. Still, we did have a nice day and hanging out with OH was lovely and we didn't care that we were vegging because it felt deserved! Again, no faffing.

Today has been a different story. I was working from home and spent much of the day psyching myself up to go for a run in between thinking up excuses not to. Eventually I did go and enjoyed it, but definitely didn't put my time to good use for a lot of the day and as a result feel weirdly guilty and a bit frustrated. Lots of faffing = definitely room for improvment.

So it seems it's not so much about what or how much I can put on a list and then tick off, but is more about how I spend the time that has the impact on how I feel. Quality over quantity. On Friday when I got everything done, I kept focussed by asking myself "Is there something else/on my list that I could be doing now?" whenever I felt myself starting to faff so I'm going to keep trying that.

It also comes down to working out what is realistic. No point setting unachievable goals really is there?!

I like confuzzled's idea of a Must-Do and Should-Do list, but having the Should-Do would give me the option to Put Things Off when I certainly don't need encouraging in this area. In fact I tried to write tomorrow's To Do List breaking it down into the two categories and there was actually no reason at all why I couldn't do all the things... But I can also see how doing it this way reduces the potential to feel guilty about not doing something.

Anyway:

Tuesday 22 June 2010 (in no particular order)

• Make lunch for work.
• Walk to work.
• Buy Aussie pressie for niece/nephew/friend's babies.
• Go to circuit training after work.
• Pack case for trip back to UK.
• Do internet clothes shopping .
• Call bank to find out if Aussie card works in UK.
• Call phone company to query bill.
• Call Ikea to check Thing is in stock.

I'm glad I've made that little switch in my head about how to face all this - ie that its how I use the time, rather than getting loads and loads done. I suppose all this will be a Work In Progress and something about it's not so much the destination but the journey or whatever...

Nightie night, I'm off to bed now, have a good day!
BM