Plow to the End of the Row – Finish What You Start

In another post, I share the Importance of Creating Lists for Beating Procrastination.

Beat Procrastination – Make A List & Reward Yourself

Among other things, I share one of my To-Do Lists, which is in progress, at the time of this Blog Post.

It is past 5:00 pm on the afternoon of 09.21.2001, and I have not been able to complete the task of cleaning my kitchen. As I began to work on my very cluttered and very dirty kitchen, I realized that cleaning a kitchen is not just one task. Like cleaning any other part of a dirty and cluttered house,

Cleaning a Kitchen is a Death by 1,000 Cuts.

Because cleaning my kitchen is such a monumental tak right now, I have broken it down in a series of smaller steps.

Beating Procrastination is serious business, and it requires a serious approach, which includes a significant program of self assessment and accountability. People who have succeeded at weight watchers and/or at Alcoholics Anonymous will probably acknowledge that part of the success of those programs. Before the days of the Covid virus began, the people who participated in Weight Watchers were expected to report weekly to a center to be weighed. For anyone who has ever needed to lose weight, the threat of a weekly weigh-in becomes a definite incentive not to binge eat. Alcoholics Anonymous depends on frequent meetings at which members are encouraged the process that they are making. Alcoholics Anonymous presents successful participants with badges that are not too terribly different from the stars that elementary students get in school. Participants of AA are also teamed with sponsors who help the participant monitor his or her progress or lack of progress along the way. In short, self-assessment and accountability are helpful for people who are trying to make changes in their lives. And blocked creatives and procrastinators are indeed trying to make positive changes. For that reason, I believe that in terms of making lists, a daily assessment of one’ success or lack of success is also very important, and I have also created a Daily Assessment program that should work in tandem with one’s To-Do list.

Allow me to return to the task of my dirty kitchen. I realized that my best plan for working through that task was to break it up into smaller and more manageable tasks. I have learned that I need repeated small rewards along the way and that the hope of a huge reward at the end of my goal doesn’t sustain me. I prefer to set up my work-do in smaller bites. Cleaning a dirty and cluttered kitchen is like eating an entire cow . Therefore, I added a sub-table beneath the Task To Clean the Kitchen, and I am rewarding myself with an X for each of the sub-steps that I accomplish. I will give myself a red star when I have done everything that I need to do to get my kitchen clean.

How Do You Eat A Cow? – One Bite at a Time – Anonymous

Again, I did not complete the cleaning of my kitchen today, but I did complete some of the tasks that I need to complete for tomorrow’s tas of cleaning my living room.

While I must admit that I didn’t finish everything that I needed to do today, I have not thrown in the towel. The Beauty of a To-Do List that Is Made in Microsoft Word is that It Is Easy to Edit and Update. I’ll work more on that task tomorrow. The important thing is that I am determined to work on my kitchen until it is spic and span. I am on a mission. I refuse to give up ntil I complete today’s task. Tomorrow is OK?

 

 

 

 

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