the benefits of procrastination

junk drawer
Feels like the right day to clean out the junk drawer.

After being away for the past five days, I have a ton of writing to catch up on.

Thatā€™s why Iā€™m now doing the laundry.

And running the dishwasher.

And hand washing my bras.

I predict more chores will get done today than any time in the recent past.

I will renew our lapsed earthquake insurance.

And pay the cable bill.

And replace the lightbulbs that are out in the kitchen.

I may even get my tennis racket restrung.

Iā€™ve already changed the ink cartridge in the printer.

And sewn the button that came off my go-to shirt.

And unpacked the cans of soda from the carton.

And placed them in the fridge.

And itā€™s only 6:00 in the morning.

Feeling productive and proud and smug — who says procrastination is bad? — I will accomplish a lot today.

Then, somewhere in the mid-afternoon, I will lie down.

And fall asleep.

And my thoughts will stew and evolve and marinate until my words become sentences.

And then I’ll wake up.

And sit down at the computer.

And write.

50 thoughts on “the benefits of procrastination

  1. I swear you just described me on my off days when I’m overwhelmed. I always do the opposite of what needs done to get ready for what needs done lol Love This!

  2. Ha! When I saw your post, I thought “oh, that’s marinating.” This week we’ve been hanging out with my daughter and her beau, who are both architecture students. Steve and I are designers, and we’ve been talking about how we approach projects. Steve and Kate can compartmentalize and jump from project to project. Brendan and I are in the “all stars must be aligned” camp. We all get our work done, we just approach it in different ways.

  3. I LOVE this post. These are all VERY good reasons for procrastination. My laundry is piling up right now, so perhaps I should put off some blogging today!

  4. Lol this post made me smile. I am totally the same. I put off the things I have to do until the very last moment and then rush to get them done. Maybe it’s the journalist in me but I seem to thrive on the last-minute things. – Katy

  5. I think one day last week (when you were away) I shot you an email saying I got nothing done cause I was procrastinating all day. But….I didn’t get nearly as much done as you did. Of course we don’t need earthquake insurance. Not yet…

  6. lol! i’m a procrastinator too i suppose, but without a long attention span. so i bounce around from thing to thing and don’t always finish…

  7. That’s so funny because I did the exact same thing on Saturday. I had been needing to write but it wasn’t coming. We had been gone for 5 days and I just couldn’t get caught up. I was intending on writing all day Saturday since the hubby had to work. Then I woke up Saturday morning and started cleaning and I mean cleaning. I actually wrote a post about that will come out on Friday. What I didn’t write about where Sunday and today where I have been writing my well ass off every since.

  8. ROFLMAO!
    Sounds like my life the last few days.
    Procrastination on what needs to be done {home work notes} and doing everything and anything else.
    But, the bathroom is clean and the kids have clothing so it will all work out.
    Right?

  9. Now I will sit here and try to figure out the difference between marinating and stewing — I bet it has something to do with a nap!

    I just love how your writing and your perspective just makes me smile! Thank you for filling my life with so much color and so many smiles!

  10. Writers are such good procrastinators! The muse allows it and encourages it. Muse Marinade. I like it. I tell you one thing though, this working 8 to 5 really puts a crimp in my procrastination! Really good procrastination takes time and multiple tasks to really allow all the simmering, cogitating, and so on to have full effect.

  11. I am the world’s worst procrastinator, or best, depending on how you look at it. I have always been this way and probably always will be, but everything always gets done in the long run.

  12. The older I get – the more I procrastinate – LOL Hey – I think your junk drawer looks pretty good! Looks like the drawer will close! šŸ™‚ I don’t even think about cleaning the junk drawer until I have messed with it for about a week trying to get the darn thing to close.

  13. The life of a writer. šŸ˜‰ My husband is a writer…and a procrastinator, but that’s okay, the end product of his writing is always worth the wait. I just wish he could do it for a living, he’d love it!

  14. Oh this is me on a weekly basis LOL. I will do everything that needs to be done in a week, in about 6 hours. It works for me lol.

  15. I am a big time procrastinator. My hubs would pick on me when I was working on my BA and MBA cause I was notorious for waiting until the last minute to work on papers. I think it worked though because I always made President and Deans lists.

  16. LOL! My procrastination tends to go the opposite direction! LOL! I need to do housework but I would rather catch up on blog stuff! šŸ˜‰

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