by Andrea Christenson, @AndreaC_Author
Procrastination is a disease many of us are afflicted with every day. Or, maybe it doesn’t bother us because we can worry about it later…
I don’t have to tell you the difficulties procrastination brings into our lives, the sense of being rushed into finishing a project when the truth is there was plenty of time to do it in the first place. Or the never ending nagging feeling that there are things that “ought” to be done while doing other things instead. Procrastination is a double defeater—first you feel guilty for not getting things done, then you feel stressed because everything is due at once (like the blog post you’ve known about for months… Not that I would know anything about that, of course.)
After forty-four years of battling this enemy I can safely say, I won’t win this war. But, maybe I can win a few battles. Read on to find out the weapon I employ. Okay. Enough fighting metaphors.
Planners aren’t my thing, I tend to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of space to fill in and locked up by the words “Goals” and “Priorities”. Shudder. (But, if you’re a planner person, I highly recommend this one from this very website, www.mybrilliantwritingplanner.com I love that it focuses on your values for your whole life and not just getting things done. It was created by authors for authors. There are a bunch of great tools in it, and the planners are brilliantly, beautifully designed. Okay, enough commercial. They didn’t even ask me to put this in!) Some people thrive on planners and daybooks and I love that. I wish for that. But, I’m self aware enough to know it’s just not me.
The magic bullet for me turned out to be: lists. Simpler than a planner, and easier to work through. From laundry to writing a scene to making a dentist appointment for my daughter, if I can cross something off a list I’m far more likely to attempt to complete that task. I’ve also found that my procrastination stems from many sources (I’ve written some about this before), places like fear, or imposter syndrome, laziness, dislike or distaste for a particular task, but having my tasks in front of me in the form of a simple list makes each of those obstacles appear easier to overcome.
However, even making a list can be subject to procrastination. So, I use this one simple hack—my husband; my type A, always thinking three steps ahead, list make extraordinaire, super organized, get ‘er done husband.
Now, obviously not everyone has access to my husband, so let me tell you how he helped me. We decided to look at the next five weeks (and the five after that) and build a few lists from there. We took the three main things I’m working on right now—two writing projects and my general business stuff and wrote out what needs to be done for each (we carefully avoided the word “goal”. Ha!). Then, we broke those tasks down into smaller chunks that could be done in a day or two. Then we scheduled each of those things into a project management app (I used Trello because it was one I was familiar with from when I was planning things at church. There are tons of project management apps and programs out there.) Here are some photos of how that looked when I was done.
Now I have a simple list to follow every day. It isn’t a perfect system. In fact, I’m still procrastinating on some (okay, most) of these things. But, it is a tool in my arsenal that will help keep me fighting when the procrastination starts to win (Yes. Back to the war analogy. Sigh.).
I should probably have a fantastic paragraph to complete this blog post. Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow.
Sometimes the sweetest moments in life are made from the most familiar and ordinary ingredients.
Robin Fox is living out her dreams working in a gourmet bakery in Paris. She thought she’d live there forever, but when her relationship with her boss sours, those dreams crumble. She finds herself back home in Deep Haven, Minnesota, caring for her grandparents’ rundown bakery while they’re away. But she vows that when they return in six weeks, she’ll trade this ordinary life for the one she left behind.
Sammy Johnson has never gotten traction in any area of his life. This hasn’t improved in the almost two years since the accident which nearly killed him. Although his heart is still beating, it contains little passion for the life he’s living in Deep Haven. But that begins to change when he offers to help his former high school friend, Robin.
Working together to keep Fox Bakery from going under, they find more than friendship is simmering between them. But when the six weeks are up, will Robin follow her old dreams back to the glamor of Paris or will she discover how sweet it is to be loved in Deep Haven?
Return to Deep Haven with the Fox Family, where Robin and Sammy find that small town life isn’t ordinary after all.
Andrea Christenson lives in Minnesota with her husband and two daughters. When she is not busy homeschooling her girls, she loves to read anything she can get her hands on, bake bread, eat cheese, and watch Netflix—though not usually all at the same time. You can connect with Andrea on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and on her website www.AndreaChristenson.com