How to Stop Procrastinating: Trial A

It is summer. I am sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee next to my happily snoozing dog, and I feel – unhappy! What a crazy waste of a potentially perfect day of my life! And the reason for my unease is even more ridiculous: I want to go on a trip to visit friends and can’t figure out the schedule. How can this possibly ruin such a fine day? And what to do about it?

As a serial mover, I love to make friends in new places, and when we move elsewhere, I love to keep in touch with them over the years. Whenever I can, I try to make the efforts to go and visit my old friends and places. However, it is always stressful and awkward to plan.

That is why, inmy recent case, it is only thirteen days until departure and I still have not scheduled most meet-ups. As soon as I look at the calendar, my head shrieks with thoughts: I want to enjoy quality alone time with everyone dear to me. I want to see all as often and as long as I can. I want to go to all my favourite places. I consider that I won’t be visiting there again any time soon. So, I want to maximise for quantity and quality. That is unfortunately impossible. Hence, my plans get all tangled up, and I go chose to further procrastinate.

Why fear fun?

This is clearly something I want to do. It not like procrastinating about dental cleaning or filing receipts. Those things are never fun and can almost always be done a week later… But meeting friends, returning to an old home town, visiting favourite people and places, how can this be not fun?

As I type away here to you, it dawns on me, that it is not the planning itself that worries me. The worries just latch onto the trip!

That trip takes me to revisit a happy past. This triggers worries that everything has changed so much: will I end up being let down by the present? Maybe I will destroy the happy pictures of the places by adding new, but disappointing experiences on top?

Nostalgia is a dangerous poison

Sweet memories and nostalgia give tiny cracks to my heart: to know how those days are GONE. The kids are no longer small. Many friends have moved to other places. I am no longer that young with all those glorious things of the years past: health, cloth sizes, hair texture, stamina. That makes me think of the relentless passing of days and lives; of mortality itself. And before I know it, I am staring an entirely different beast into the eyes.

I am not sure: does the procrastination come first or the spiralling thoughts?

First step, I asked my friends for their thoughts on my trip and my present conundrum. To see their replies made me feel better. Not so much as they said things that I did not know myself: „Just do it“, „Bundle friends“, „Keep it simple and enjoy“. But it felt good to hear that is ok for me to come back.

It somehow made me see: yes, everything has changed and it won’t be the same. There isn’t enough time to do it all. And more importantly, I can’t recreate the past.

But that is ok. That does not make it always less.

Meeting after time apart shows that you are not merely friends of convenience. The things that I might have worried about when I left them, have not happened: we did not grow too much apart and we can still meet and chat. Not everyone – for many reasons. It is simple mathematics: it is impossible to fully sustain all relationships you ever had while creating new ones.

Instead of struggling with all those things I cannot achieve, it do what I can.

Look the beast straight into its eyes…

So, this bout of procrastination is beaten by taking the time to REALLY think about my underlying thoughts and worries. Then, instead of fighting shadows, I can address my emotions first, understand why I am feeling overwhelmed. Next, I can from the bottom up rebuild my expectations for the trip and use those to get into planning. That helps me to prioritise the too many loose items on my agenda.

A day later, I have made progress on my plans! Instead of getting bogged into running from meeting to meeting and while being at one spot, already stressing about getting to the next, I can express my limitations and communicate clearly. Just to meet shortly and get a hug is fantastic. Touch up that relationship. But be realistic of what can be had in three days.

No matter what we do, time passes and things change. Being upset about it or procrastinating about managing the remains of that process only ruins the time you live now.

I stare at the beast – and smile!

Enjoy what I have now and here: dog, coffee, sun. And enjoy whoever I manage to meet. I’ll stop moping around, I will buckle up, ask about their schedules and work on a plan. It will not be perfect. But is does not have to. It will be excellent and I will laugh and smile and be a bit sad and then very happy. Here is life and I have been given the chance to live it. And I will do just that!