WHOOOOOOOOOSH

Douglas Adams once said: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Now that I have 3 little ones who are all so little, deadlines have just turned into whooshing critters to me. Deadlines used to motivate me so much. I used to get everything done by the deadline be it a real deadline or an arbitrary self-imposed one. If I tried to make all my deadlines (or any of them) now I would not ever get any sleep and sleep is very sacred around here. (I feel we need to model good sleep habits.)

It's so easy to procrastinate when you have children. All you have to do is say you are spending quality time with them and then you have the perfect excuse. Who can argue with you when you are bonding with your child? You need to spend time with your child for their sake. Or if they get sick, then what kind of a parent would you be if you didn't drop everything to sit by their bed and nurse them back to health? Or they make a mess and you have to unexpectedly clean the kitchen floor which then makes the rest of the house look dirty so you have to clean it from top-to-bottom too. Children give you endless perfect excuses to put off almost anything and to rationalize almost anything*!

This weekend I need to start a report that should have been done before Christmas (talk about missing the deadline). I also need to start drafting a new research plan to take to a meeting that will happen sometime between the 16th and 31st of January (talk about your loose deadline).

I want to start the research plan, but I'm so intimidated by it that I find myself procrastinating in a BIG BAD WAY. This area of research is a new one for me and it's so daunting. As soon as I get started I know I will be fine. But right now, all these famous procrastinators would be proud of me!




*And the reason I'm blogging so much lately is for them. I'm documenting my life for them. Yea, yea, that's the ticket!