Three hours and 12 minutes ago, while slumped on a cosy armchair, I started reading online about how to motivate yourself to work in a home office environment. After dismissing a few blogs, I found one article that seemed entirely relevant and took on board the need to always work in a designated work area. I straight away cleared my desk (ie piled elsewhere all that was piled around it) and placed a glass of water and a water bottle by my monitor. To my amazement, that was achieved within ten minutes of starting out. The sense of achievement was almost overwhelming. I had a slight concern that overachievement so early on could lead to a premature peak in activity levels but I felt buoyed by my enthusiasm and such positive small steps to a day of starting the memoir (of sorts) I feel I am prepared for. I decided to embrace the idea of “blue sky thinking” to slow the pace of achievement.
The remaining three hours and two minutes have been filled under the guise of blue sky thinking. Within minutes of making myself comfy on the “thinking bed”, our poorly cat came and sat with me. As she needs love and attention, I couldn’t really get up. Or write anything. Or, it turns out, think of anything related to starting my book. Then I fell asleep for a while. On emerging from the dozing state, I started the thought process of justifying my nap. I mean, my being tired reduces motivation levels so a nap leads to a surge in productivity. No, not good enough. The cat being content means she’ll get better and I won’t need to breach the current £2,000 of vet bills, which means I won’t be so stressed about earning more money, which will lead to a happy, vet-free cat, a more financially viable me and a surge in productivity. No. Time to turn to motivational words that are quick and easy to write down and fill a page quite quickly. Funnily enough, I couldn’t shake off the niggling recurrence of “procrastination”.
It then seemed like a good idea to get up and DO something. Ooo, yes, go outdoors for some real blue sky (that is a stretch, it’s grey, grey, grey). I had a big glass storage jar I wanted to get rid of. Ah, yes, I could walk to the nearest charity shop and donate it. And while I’m out, I might as well have a coffee. And a cinnamon bun. As today is earmarked as the day to start – actually, restart – my third book, it felt right to justify the coffee. Caffeine equals energy and to put a stop to napping. Cinnamon bun equals sugar to make me happy.
It now being the run-up to lunch time, 12.05pm, my focus is veering very much towards lunch. I’ve just made a coffee.
This is how I lose minutes, hours and, not that I really want to dwell on it, days. And, yes, I know, procrastination is the word.
It seems counterintuitive to give myself more to write but the idea is that a progress blog will start off the writing process every day. This is day 1, Wednesday, 19th June 2019, and I am now poised to steno the intro to what is currently called “40 Patches”. The plan is for day 2, chapter 1, to commence tomorrow. Few of my plans go to plan.