“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
– William James, letter to Carl Stumpf, 1886 January 1st
And that is exactly how procrastination feels to someone who has been told by a zillion marketing and advertising experts that a “blog” is what’s needed to promote my online presence at the next level. To a therapist whose approach is one of live interpersonal interaction, who relies on spoken words and subtle body language to communicate and understand, the creation of a disconnected monologue to the unknown cyberworld allowed for post-it notes of to-do items to be moved from day to day, list to list, and unrealized priority to unimplemented task.
So today, I am confronting procrastination by checking off a to-do item and making it a DONE item. I might not be writing a blog the right way. It might not be long enough – or it might be too long. It might be too personal, or it might not offer my readers what they (you!) want to read. But by tackling something that I have been avoiding, I hope to learn that the relief that comes from just doing something scary or unpleasant far outweighs the exhaustion of knowing it remains undone. And by surviving, I hope to demonstrate to you that you too can cross one thing off your list!
