Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Procrastination Station

Blogs are funny things. They can be read by zillions of people. They can be read by a tiny handful. They can be written several times throughout the day. They can have one or two entries and then abandoned entirely (as is usually the case with the already-taken clever blog names you wish you had thought up first).

Or they can be somewhere in between. They can be thought out and polished, or raw, stream of consciousness diary entries filled with monotonous details of the ordinary and routine. They can be a message board for you to share your stories with friends, or a goal you have for the way you want to live your life.

The thing about blogs is that it's really easy to get behind.

Get behind? you ask. Who's setting the deadline? Well, when you let a day or two slip by and then it becomes three or ten, you end up starting a traffic jam of stories you want to share. Your blogging dashboard can have a list of drafts glaring up at you with blue lettering, a to-do list of photos that need to be edited and added, unfinished musings, or text that never got a second read before that post button was clicked because you got distracted by facebook updates.

Let's just say, hypothetically, that your blog goal is to contribute every day or so. I know some people who do well with routine and regimen. For me, committing to even one task each day is difficult. And darn it, as much as I need my pen, I also need my freedom. Or an excuse. Or ten.

So when you're ready to start writing again, do you move forward, or rewind to the stories from before? Do you backdate your blog posts to make it look like you never skipped? (Guilty!) Do you write stories ahead of time to plan ahead (ooh, that's kind of a good idea). Do you break down and get wireless so you can actually depend on having an internet connection and one less obstacle?

Well, after meditating on this subject for several days, I've decided I'm going to do a combination. Just as soon as I finish my laundry.

That's the good thing about procrastinating- it can make you incredibly productive in other areas of your life, such as eyebrow tweezing maintenance and closet organization.

3 comments:

  1. ha - yes. There can definitely be this unsaid pressure to blog it up on a daily basis :)

    Closet organization is not my favorite...

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  2. I secretly would love to be a professional closet organizer- it's way more fun when you're telling someone else what to do with their stuff.

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  3. I think that procrastination runs in families. But one never perfects it until one has a spouse to give one lists, so that one may procrastinate multiple things at once.

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