How was your weekend? Mine was pretty productive until I made the daunting realization that I am quite the pro at perpetually putting things off. One word for that whole statement is procrastination. I guess it's fair that I just put it out there that it's not a daunting realization. Saturday, was when it was very in my face. My intention was to go to the bank to get some things in check, after work which according to the schedule and my wishful thinking would end at 11.45. I was beyond sure that by 12.30 at the latest I would be out of this joint. Needless to say, that did not happen. I still remained hopeful. I got there at 1only to find there doors shut, even the usual lingering of their lone watchman who is there a few minutes after closing time was amiss.
In my head, I was dead set that come rain or sunshine next week, my plans would go according to plan. A few hours later is when it dawned on me, it's nothing but in plain sight unreasonable to wait a whole seven days to do something that can be done three days later. Now that reality had hit me harder than roadkill, I purposed to take care of things this Thursday. A funny thing happened though, this afternoon my 2 o'clock class was cancelled. Being a Monday I was in no mood to spend it in the bank but another Adulting 101 lesson, just because you don't want to do something doesn't change the fact that it has to be done. That in mind, I put my big girl pants on after lunch and took several seats at the banking hall.
That's affirmative action at its best if I do say so myself. The ultimate dream would have been getting everything done this afternoon but even though I have to go back Thursday, I'll take it.
Did I mention that in the amount of time I hadn't gone back, the bank changed its weekend banking hours, the person working on my account was long gone and the last activity in the account I was going to check up on was on the 5th of September, twenty days later, nearly a whole three weeks, borderline a month was wasted by me, laying low, waiting for the problem to solve itself.
Mastering the art of procrastination goes hand in hand with the art of making excuses. Take for instance, Sunday morning. The intention was to be up by 5 a.m to confront my pile of laundry the only way how; with a good scrub and a rub-a-dub-dub. My alarm went off. Cue excuse numero uno; I was up late the night before taking down my twists, I was also heavily distracted while doing so watching Queen Sugar and what not. I negotiated with myself to reset my alarm for 6 a.m, I don't even think I heard that one go off. At 7 a.m, I was ready to get up and show my laundry whose boss, turns out my dad was up preparing for his business trip down to the coast. He was in the bathroom, I was in bed. Surely if I just waited for him while in the confines of the warmth of my bed, my ears would peak at the slightest indication of his exit and I would be up ready to carpe whatever diem was left. You guessed it,that didn't happen.
I got up alright, a whole hour later to the sound of him closing the front door and entering his cab. If you thought that threw me off, I switched on the TV which was pretty much the beginning of the end. There was a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air marathon on Comedy Central which if I didn't follow up with the Black-ish marathons a few channels down would have been a travesty, no? As if that wasn't enough my sister made a killer breakfast; pancakes and a banana-strawberry yoghurt smoothie. One flip through the channels was yet another wrong move that morning, they were airing Martin and I just had to, you understand?
Around 11 a.m., was when I had the realization that the day was practically over yet I was still perched on the living room couch not even thinking about my massive to-do list. It took me 7 hours to do everything;laundry, hair (including prepooing and deep conditioning) and mopping down my room. If I woke up at 5 a.m to do everything I would have probably been done by midday and had the rest of the day to bum all I want. Maybe even get some schoolwork in.
How is it only five years ago, I could wake up not at 4 a.m, not 5 a.m but 3 a.m and crack on at my books. In fact I'd beeline for them. Nothing could distract me. If I had purposed to do something, then that's what would have been done. Flash forward five years later, I'm an utter mess, not an ounce of self-discipline left in me. Of course the motivation back then was my high school grades would make or break me, now, eh? Grades, who need them?Laundry who cares for clean clothes? Do I really need to wash my hair today? The amount of self-coaxing I do on myself is insane.
The most crucial lesson I've learnt is to stop putting stuff off especially all the way to the weekend. If I plan to have even a spec of rest, I might as well act now on anything that needs work.
Have a good one!
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