My Word and My Resolution for the New Year

My life seems to revolve around my propensity toward procrastination. I am great at making plans, writing to-do lists, then concocting excuses for why I did not do all the things I aspired to do. I have given up on New Year’s resolutions in any serious way. I will not achieve whatever I decide should be done in my life. I could vow to make the usual resolutions – lose weight, eat healthy, exercise regularly, touch base with friends not communicated with in weeks…months…years…

But I know myself too well. Most of the entries on my list will never be crossed off as achieved. So why pressure myself unnecessarily? Why become anxious, upset, depressed when I can avoid the angst by doing…nothing? The New Year comes and goes, and I am the same.    

So this year no resolutions, except…

I come back to my inclination for procrastination. When younger the future stretched ahead of me, a lengthy road with plenty of time to accomplish whatever I wanted, or at least tried, to do. 

But most of the road stretches behind me today. Is there any way to improve, even a little bit, my innate ability to delay, stall, defer, routine and special undertakings?

I want to try. No grandiose ideas to no longer be a procrastinator. I realize that is impossible. Whether born a procrastinator or a talent nurtured over decades, it is part of who I am.

I searched the ubiquitous cloud for words that might describe my task for the coming year, a virtue or skill that will become integrated into my daily life. The closest I came was: proactive – an antonym for procrastinating.

So, my hopefully reachable goal for the New Year: Don’t always put off until tomorrow, or the day after, or some vague future time, what can be completed NOW. 

How to accomplish this lofty objective?

I won’t linger over my morning coffee, newspaper, and puzzles quite as long as I sometimes do. 

I will set my alarm and get up early enough to feel and be productive. Not every day – after all, I am a card-carrying retiree, but maybe 3 or 4 times a week.

I will write down important things that should be done and occasionally refer to the list. If I don’t lose it. 

I will declutter and organize my workspace. This may be the hardest task of all. I am not a neat freak or master organizer. I live amongst piles – piles of papers (yes, even in the computer age), piles of books (real, physical books with covers and pages of print, some with pictures), piles of miscellaneous stuff – mail, catalogs, magazines. Reviewed infrequently, the stacks tend to become permanent fixtures. They dwindle but grow again as new items are placed on an appropriate pile.

Summarizing, I will attempt to be slightly more productive than I have been, and a lot less lazy.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year!