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Tuesday, June 21, 2005

If at first you don't do anything...

From here, a nice tidbit of information that speaks to Getting Things Done's "cringe factor". The whole idea of "cringe" and how to fight it is, thus far, the most useful part of Getting Things Done for me, as the book is written for the overburdened more than the undermotivated.
Advice such as "just buckle down and do it," "get organized," and "try harder" are based on a dysfunctional definition of procrastination. What they're really saying is: "If you weren't such a lazy bum you could do this. No fooling around. Life is dull and hard. There's no time for fun. Work is a horrible thing to contemplate, but you have to do it anyway." Most procrastination happens because through procrastinating we are temporarily able to relieve fears: fear of failure, fear of being imperfect, fear of impossible expectations. Most of these fears, in turn, are ultimately based in the idea that work and life are awful struggles which we must somehow get through and that this whole horrible process will somehow make us better people in the long run.

How do we get around these fears? By temporarily setting them aside, not in favor of reading the police blotter looking for possible future Cowboys coaches, or slam-dancing with the dog, or (insert your favorite procrastination activity here), but — SETTING THESE FEARS ASIDE IN ORDER TO MAKE A SMALL, IMPERFECT START ON WHAT WE WANT TO ACCOMPLISH.
And on that note, I'm stepping away from the blog and heading back to the mines.

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