I got up at 11am this morning, uncharacteristically refreshed and ready for the day. Of course, my day was supposed to start 3 hours earlier with a trip to Philadelphia, but hey, who cares about consistency and discipline, right? What difference does it make that I’m not doing what I said I’d do? The only people who are affected are vendors anyway – they need me, I don’t need them. Except for my Aunt who was expecting me at noon. And my  cousin..

Anyway, getting good work done this morning while waiting to connect with potential business parner / contractor for my web work. Also, gotta remember to shop for outsourcing partners and acquire an understanding of the communications requirements from them. It might be good to draw up an outsourcing plan/checklist before I start the real search. And talk to Reno.

I read the other day that procrastination is a response to anxiety.  Not a particularly productive response, but if true, the answer to procrastination is to reduce anxiety. Let’s ponder that for a bit today.

This is what I do when I’m avoiding work. I need to make some progress on the yes requirements. I have a meeting tomorrow morning to discussj (actually, later today). It’s now 4am and for the last 2 hours or so I’ve been reading the U.S. Tax Code. Yup. Fascinating reading it is. Real page turner. I’m surprised no one’s made a movie of it yet.
What it’s called is procrastination. Here’s an interesting fact. Wikipedia defines procrastrination thus -

Procrastination is a type of behaviour which is characterised by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite procrastination as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.

But here’s what Wiktionary says-

The act of postponing, delaying or putting off, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.

There’s are real dissonance here – am i coping with anxiety or just habitually lazy. I like the wikipedia definition more. In fact I like it so much I’m close to spending a couple of hours researching the basis for their ‘axiety coping mechanism’ proclamation.

All in all, I don’t just spend a lot of time procrastinating, I spend a lot of energy. I don’t procrastinate idly, (most of the time) I doing something else that would be productive at some other time. For me procrastination is making a thoughtfully prioritized list of tasks and then spending the next 8 hours doing something that isn’t on the list, but seems really interesting at the time. It’ll be a task that probably would be on the list if the list were 100 times as long (e.g. if I could prioritize all the tasks I’ll need to do in the next year or two, this task would definitely be there).

So I just finished my scan of the tax code. I now feel much more knowledgeable about taxes and a little more prepared for the tax strategy that I must eventually formulate and execute. And when I do that a month from now, I’m sure I’ll wish I could still remember the shit I read tonite.

– Bill