Procrastinating 101: This Tape Won't Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds . . .

In the final chapter of his book Slow Down . . . and Get More Done, Marshall Cook provides a cheat sheet and a challenge.  First, the cheat sheet:

Basic principles of the slow-down life:

. . . The mission statement of the book [is] its title:  Slow Down . . . and Get More Done.  Put another way, I'm urging you to reclaim your life.

These statements contain several assumptions:

• You may be somewhat out of control of your life because you move too quickly and make decisions reflexively. 
• Your life is worth reclaiming. 
• You can reclaim your life by slowing down. 
• You possess the power to do so.

Cook's “two most important [organizing] principles:”

I will decide how to spend my time.

I will have the courage to be nobody but myself.

and his 

Principles of behavior

1. I will accept the consequences and pay the price promptly for my decisions.
2. I will stay open to the possibilities in each moment.
3. I will listen to my intuitions.
4. I will treat myself at least as well as I'd treat the family dog.
5. I will act instead of worrying about acting.
6. I will banish the distracters from my life.
7. I will accept waiting as an opportunity for rest and reflection.
8. I will seek right work and make work right.
9. I will seek the rest and respite I need.
10. I will exercise and eat to enhance my health and well-being.
11. I will nurture and rejoice in my creative power.

Cook's challenge to those of us who have made the journey with him through his book?  To come up with our own mission statements, and organizing principles.  This is the part where I usually slip up, the part where I have to work with what I've just read.  But having slogged through the weeks of digesting this wise man's now relatively long-ago words, I figure I owe it to both of us to make the effort.  (Another guru of mine, Beyond Blue blogger Therese Borchard, has a video blog on the writing a mission statement which I found intriguing, but didn't, as Cook puts it, take so far as “owning,” either.)  I'll try to get to it.  Really, I will.  Maybe you should, too.


And once we have done so?  

Only you can live by them.  Let them guide your life.  If you do, you will never violate your truth.