Procrastinating Your Procrastination

So here’s what occurs: You've a plan – let’s suppose, to awaken at 7; be washed and dressed to kill and breakfasted by 8; at your desk, easel or other workspace by 9; work 3 hours; exercise during your lunch; eat a fit salad at your desk; work 4 more hours; come home; eat supper with your mate; work a few more hours in the evening; and then curl up in bed with a great book. But you don’t abide by the plan. Maybe you awaken late at 8, or 9, or…noon! The plan is trashed before you even get moving. Or, perhaps, it takes you not one, but 3 hours to make it to your desk. And then, when you’re there, you drop an hour or three reading the paper, net surfing, and making personal calls. Or, perhaps when lunch comes around you don’t exercise and rather than a salad eat a mammoth sandwich and then spend the rest of the afternoon feeling slow and don’t get much done. Etc.

Procrastination is when you get bumped off the “course” you set for yourself for the day. The challenge of outfoxing procrastination is the challenge of resisting the itch to leave your course. This is likewise the challenge of beating blocks, since a block is truly an ongoing procrastination issue that lasts weeks, months, years or decades.