Boredom can beat procrastination
Sometimes I really feel like I have it all together. Sometimes though I feel like I’m still floundering in the depths of procrastination. If you stop by this site often enough, you’ll probably realize quickly that my post topics follow along that pattern.
Lately, I’ve been suffering from the fallout of following my own advice a little too closely. I still believe 100% that you have to find your passion if you want to find a true path out of perpetual procrastination. However, anything can be taken too far, and over the past six months, I’ve probably taken my passion too far.
I’ve put off the rest of my life in favor of pursuing that passion and the rest of my life has suffered. I haven’t been spending enough time with my family. I haven’t been spending enough time doing simple household tasks that ensure my household runs—smoothly or otherwise.
My passion for websites can be thought of like a piece of cake. I love cake. I could eat cake every day. I could eat cake after every meal. But I shouldn’t and I don’t. My health would suffer serious repurcussions if I did and I’m smart enough to know that and disciplined enough not to eat cake all the damn time.
I’ve taken that same attitude and turned it toward my passion. I’ve set strict limits on the amount of time I’m allowed to spend working on it so that I don’t permanently damage the rest of my life by overindulging too much now.
It’s very interesting to note that as I’ve become bored out of my mind during my “free” time, I’ve started doing stuff around that house that I hate doing, and I’ve started spending more time with my family and been lucky enough to realize how much I’ve missed being with them more.
This method of creating an environment where I’m pretty much forced to choose to work on stuff that I would otherwise continue to procrastinate on has been working exceptionally well.
For two weeks, dirty laundry hasn’t stayed dirty for longer than one to two days. I haven’t went to bed a single night with dirty dishes sitting in my kitchen sink.
I’ve had to maintain strict limits on how much time I can shift to tv watching, because I have a serious passion for that too. The truth is though, that now that I have so much more “free” time where I’m not working on my passion, I get to watch as much tv as I can stomach and still have time to get these other things done too.
Do you have a bunch of stuff waiting on you to get it done?
My suggestion? Don’t tell yourself how much you need to get it done. Give yourself some free time where you limit the good stuff. You, like me, might find yourself avoiding total boredom by working on those perpetually put off tasks that are just waiting for you to finish them.
