Procrastination, Poor Planning, and Disorganization

"When we refuse to learn the lessons, the lessons keep showing up."
--Barbara Winter
This is such a great quote. I should keep it handy, since it applies to so much of the way I conduct my life...specifically, I'm talking about my tendency to procrastinate, to plan poorly and to be disorganized. I know that these habits really cut into my ability to create...I never can find the tools I need to write, paint, draw, when I want to do so. I end up wasting all my time looking for them, or cleaning up the mess the paints, paintbrushes, pencils are lost in, thereby losing the time to create.

And I procrastinate because I see a great big forest, not the individual trees, and get overwhelmed by the enormous task of clearing a field to plow.

Micromovements
I know I've written about SARK's idea of micromovements before. (See her book "Make Your Creative Dreams Real.") Micromovements are really a way of planning your creative projects that will help you get them completed. I really think it's a useful idea. I sometimes fail at implementing it. If I have a big task on my brain, I get so overwhelmed that getting out of bed is the problem. Right now, I am letting the amount of work I have to do to get through the rest of my semester at Kennesaw State really get to me. However, when I really look at the number of tasks, and break them down into tiny steps, then I know that they are manageable. Although, lets face it, I've procrastinated for a bit now...which just expands the to-do list.) Carolyn See, in her book, "Making a Literary Life", recommends writing a 1000 words a day, 5 days a week. It's the same sort of thing as the micromovements. And if I would do it, then my young adult novel would be farther along than it is.

Disorganization
Disorganization is a really big stumbling block for me. I think it is for a lot of creatives. I have been working on getting organized for years. And no, I'm not exaggerating--years. I am better organized now than several years ago, but I'm still disorganized. When I go to class, I sometimes forget to take my notebook. So I grab a sheet of paper from a classmate, jot my notes, but then, it takes me weeks to get that sheet into the notebook where it belongs. And when I get my mail, it just piles up. I know that if I went through it right away, and put the Toastmasters magazines with the other TM information, and the Romance Writers Report with the others, that I'd be much more successful when I try to do research. But that's not what I do. I seem to spend as much energy avoiding tasks like sorting the mail as it would take to do them! I end up waiting until I literally have so much stuff on my desktop that I have to hold my laptop actually on my lap. That's usually when I end up doing a great big clean/organize project. I'm having to do one right now, since I just cleared my desk by putting everything on my bed. If I don't fix it, I won't be able to sleep tonight. And it's a huge task. I couldn't go through all that paper if I had 26 hours in which to do it, which I don't. I need to finish up this blog and get onto other class projects.

Prioritizing might be my next topic!

P.S.I got to the following webpage from Barbara Winter's site. (I visit her site often.) You must read this, it will make you both weep and sing with joy.
http://www.dannygregory.com/2006/02/advertising_and.php