Posted
on July 18, 2010, 10:38 pm,
by Mary,
under
Fun,
Travel.
Currently I’m hanging out in Tennessee, at home, one of my stops on our cross country road trip.
I finally have had time to relax and catch up on internet happenings while I’ve been gone. It was only one week of traveling, yet it was jam packed. We went from LA to Disneyland to Vegas to Dallas to New Orleans to Memphis in a week. That’s with the driving too. Quite crazy, right? And we still have to travel across the state of Tennessee and then North Carolina so we can visit the other coast and complete the road trip.
At some point I will sit down and blog about the entire trip and all the places we’ve been. But let’s just say that on this trip I’ve found the happy.
Wheee!
Posted
on July 7, 2010, 9:19 am,
by Mary,
under
Organization.
I’ve been staying in Oakland with a wonderful blogging friend for the last few days. I had the chance to explore the bay area a bit and had a great time. But instead of blogging about any of that, I want to show the results of a few hours spent organizing her home office while I was here.
Before:
After:
Oddly enough, I like to clean and organize. My adventures into living minimally and without clutter have pushed me towards doing the same for other people and enjoying the process. I love tackling a project like this that feels overwhelming (which is why it hasn’t been done already) and leaving the space useable and clean. And it’s so nice when the person appreciates the final result. Perhaps I have a future as a professional organizer?
I finally got around to organizing and packing yesterday, thankfully. This is my last day in Oregon so it needed to get done regardless of how I felt about the tasks and my overwhelming desire to procrastinate.
While I was cleaning and going through my papers, I cam across a notebook I’ve had for a few years. Inside was an old 101 in 1001 Days list. I’d completely forgotten about the list but it was awesome to see that even without keeping it in mind I’d completed a good number (almost half) of the things on the list. I’d done things like:
It was fun to go back through the list and cross off the those things and more that I have accomplished. A lot of them were little silly things, but a few were substantial. Like the internet income. Crossing that off felt really good because when I wrote that I probably made 50 cents a month online. And now I make more than $500 each month. It took some time, but achieving goals is possible.
Finding this forgotten life list inspired me to update my current life list (the one that is always changing as I change). I’ve updated it a bit to reflect some new goals and to inspire me to complete some of the other things on the list. I know quite a few will be happening in the next few months and I’m so excited. I’m happy my forgotten life list showed up just at the right time to inspire me once again.
Posted
on June 29, 2010, 1:26 pm,
by Mary,
under
Thoughts.
I’ve been procrastinating a lot lately. I’ve been procrastinating on doing my laundry, completing my to do list, packing for my move/roadtrip. I’ve been procrastinating a lot by watching Design Star and surfing the web and generally avoiding all the things I need to do to make the next month or so run smoothly for myself. And what am I doing now? Blogging. Clearly I don’t want to get anything done today either.
Which leaves everything for me to do tomorrow, since I’m leaving on Thursday for San Fransisco/Oakland. Really that’s fine because there isn’t much to do in terms of actual physical labor. Because I don’t own much I need to do a single load of laundry and then pack my things up. Easy. But I am procrastinating and leaving that until tomorrow.
Beside my packing, I really have a lot of other things I need to be doing. Last night I made a long list of things that still need to get done either before the roadtrip or before moving to New Zealand. That list is a bit random and includes things like buying travel health insurance, creating a list of business books to read, finding a place to stay for one night in LA, further researching self employment retirement options, and writing blog posts to post while I’m on the road. I’m not sure why I’m procrastinating when I have so much on my list of things to do today.
I’ve always had a problem with procrastination. I’m not the kind of person that gets things done way ahead of time, even though I wish I was that person. I’m most definitely the person that finishes things right before they need to be done. I remember when I was creating my ebook, I was putting finishing touches on it right before I was set to release it (just cosmetic stuff, the content is solid). I remember in college I would write my papers timed perfectly so they would be finished right before needing to be handed in. I always have procrastinated and then stressed myself out trying to finish things before they are do. For some reason I avoid stress in most areas of my life, but still create it for myself when I procrastinate.
But I want to change. I want to stop procrastinating. So I’m going to start making my lists again – my to do list for today is the first in a long time – and then getting them done. Life is too short and I’ve got way too much to do to let procrastination keep winning. I’m turning over a new leaf and no longer procrastinating. I’m going to get things done.. which means I need to stop blogging my declaration of war on procrastination and actually go get things done. So have a good day!
