Epic Foot-Dragging

Some acts of procrastination rise above the ordinary.  Not content to settle for the overdue library books and filing extensions of the rank and file of delay, their perpetrators distinguish themselves with their breathtaking deadline-shredding and their eye-popping feats of tardiness.  

Such stand-outs call out for recognition.  And so I am inventing an award befitting these off-the-charts deferments.  

Think of it as an anti-award.

Kind of like Hickory High's NBA Anti-Awards,

including, e.g.,

The Shawn Bradley Award, for a player who's 6-10 or taller and has the highest percentage of his shots blocked (500-minute minimum);

The Shawn Kemp Award, for the most foulouts;

And the Nick Anderson Award, for most missed free throws in a game.

Or the Razzie Awards for worst film.

Or the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Worst-dressed awards.

I'm calling it the African Queen Award for Egregious Postponement.

Why the African Queen Award?  In honor of director John Huston, who

engaged in legendary stalls before writing and directing many of his films

and famously finished editing The African Queen, for which he received two Oscar nominations (Best Screenplay and Best Director), only days before it opened. 

And because it sounds cool.

The criteria are pretty loose, and the judging eccentric, high-handed, and one-woman.  And the award will be given whenever circumstances dictate. 

For putting off really important stuff.  For a really long time.

Nominations, anyone?

The Procrastination Police You Can Download

"Step away from the solitaire."

It's late, and I'm tired.  But I'm making an effort to keep up with Monday through Friday posting.

So tonight, I'm going to pass on this little nugget from my procrastination news reader.

Among the nifty tools available to thwart our inner procrastinators is an app for Mac called Obtract.  According to the review I read, Obtract detects your unproductive computer use, relying on your own definition of what's unproductive (Maybe you really need to be constantly checking Facebook for work?).  When Obtract catches you digitally "procrastinating," it covers your screen with a maze you must solve in order to "buy" the time necessary to engage in said unproductive activity.  

The app can also be used by a team, allowing team members to monitor each other's unproductive time, and to buy unproductive time from each other.

Since I got sucked into the solitaire vortex earlier this evening, while intending to relax from a strenuous day, I decided this would be a perfect time to try out this new app.  I downloaded it for free, but encountered some difficulty setting it up.  I have not yet figured out how to tell it what I consider unproductive.  

Not waiting for instruction, the application determined that blogging was unproductive.  It told me that I had become "too distracted to continue this activity. . ." and should "complete the maze for 5 more minutes of distraction."  So I guess we know what it thinks about the value of this blog!  I had to kill the darn thing, temporarily, in order to complete this apparently unfruitful post.

I'm going to take another stab at bringing Obtract to heel.  When I've got it up and running, I will post an update about its efforts to keep me in line.

Procrastinating 101: What Do Pigeons, Vermin & Members of Congress Have in Common?

Dr. Piers Steel, demonstrating a tried and true procrastination behavior--cruising the fridge--for the Edmonton Journal.

Today, we embark on a several-weeks journey with Dr. Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation.  Having finished the introduction and first chapter of this recently published book, I am looking forward to the trip.

To begin with, Dr. Steel establishes his considerable credentials in the field, the most significant to me being his own past struggles with procrastination.  I don't know about you, but I feel a little less like a lab rat knowing that the researcher studying a behavior I engage in has his own experience of it.

This book, however, was penned, not just by any old garden-variety procrastinator, reformed or otherwise, but by a man who has spent years conducting his own research into procrastination.  Furthermore, Dr. Steel has applied the technique of meta-analysis to help sort through the 

over eight hundred scientific articles on the topic from fields spanning economics to neuroscience, in languages ranging from German to Chinese. . .

Meta-analysis is a statistical method which, as Piers Steel tells us,

enabl[es] a synthesis of knowledge. . . reveal[ing] the underlying truths we seek.

Using this approach, he was able to wade through a plethora of studies in which researchers have

run laboratory experiments, read through personal diaries, twiddled with neurotransmitters, and dissected DNA. . . .[and] have monitored every setting, from airports to shopping malls; . . .wired entire classrooms to track every student's twitch and shudder; and. . .studied procrastinators from every background, including pigeons, vermin, and members of the U.S. Congress.

Wow!

Based on these efforts, Steel promises surprises, a departure from the same-old same-old about procrastination, and strategies to help us procrastinators combat the problem.  

Next week, Chapter 1, "Portrait of a Procrastinator."  

Done for the Week: A Short Story of a Busy Week

This morning, the sun is out.  And that's news these days, where I come from.  

Last week, I ran outside with gloves on; my triathlon camp was relocated indoors by icy winds and rain; my newly planted flowers were in danger of perishing; and my mood went south in the face of unalleviated gray skies.

Here's what I got done, anyway:

Done for the Week:  May 9 - 15, 2011

1. Continued training for triathlon
2. Ran twice with my training partner 
3. Attended semi-grueling day-long triathlon camp 
4. Finished The Zen Path Through Depression, by Philip Martin; The Book of Good Habits, by Dirk Mathison; and A Short Guide to a Happy Life, by Anna Quindlen
5. Attended Board meeting
6. Attended Housing Authority board meeting
7. Attended church's annual meeting, serving as (amateur) parliamentarian
8. Attended church's Coming of Age service, as mentor
9. Attended Coming of Age party 
10. Called my mother
11. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
12. Published 5 blog posts (though global Blogger malfunction ate one--it may still be restored)
13. Attended 1 yoga class
14. Cooked twice
15. Shopped for groceries
16. Caught up on laundry
17. Watched two playoff basketball games with my sons and husband
18. Spent many hours removing glass fragments from my lawn, and garden area
19. Began planting new flowers--forget-me-nots, columbine, pansies, hanging basket of petunias
20. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
21. Saw my therapist 
22. Took a posting "snow day," courtesy of Blogger shutdown

The most important thing I accomplished last week, in my opinion, was to attend a "semi-grueling day-long triathlon camp."  This item makes the top of my list because it represents the biggest push I've given myself recently.  And although I am flagging a bit after this difficult, and seemingly interminable winter, I know from experience that it's going to take some pushing, balanced with some rest, to get me where I'm intending to go this summer.  So I'm going to suck up the sore muscles, absorb the good information and personalized instruction, and keep going. 
 
Last week's focus goal was to "return to daily meditating." The alert reader will notice the utter absence of any items related to meditating on the above list.  I continue to struggle with the need for routines supportive to my goals.  Last year, as I prepared for my first triathlon, while juggling my jobs and the needs of a relatively large and complex family, I was better able to rely on digging down to some reserve of energy to help me accomplish what I needed/wanted to get done.  This year, not so much.  Even sitting to meditate, which restores me when I actually do it, is beyond my scheduling and executing capacity most days.


The condition of the world, and the continuing political maelstrom in my state, are seriously sapping me.  I am in a state of mild exhaustion, and would benefit greatly, I believe, from being able to have even one thing that I do at a regular time each day--something that could become habit, to be done more or less automatically, without spending time and effort deciding to do it, and figuring out when to do it.

To that end, my focus goal for the coming week is to find a regular time to meditate, and to build a habit by meditating at that time every day.

My work is cut out for me.   Namaste. . .