Procrastination, Popcorn and (Un)finished Projects

Let's get this out of the way right now--I am a procrastinator. However, I'm much better at it than I used to be. Over the years, I've developed a better sense of priorities, and a much better sense of how fast I can do a thing when I have absolutely no time. 

Priorities are important, because, let's be honest, a lot of the time, the stuff we procrastinate on is stuff we really don't want to do anyway, but somehow, we've convinced ourselves that we should do that thing for some reason. (I say we, but I mean, I. Unless you agree--then, yes, we do that--so glad you understand, my friend!)

The past few years, I got on a productivity kick. Read books like "Atomic Habits," and "Deep Work," and and a few others. Started using a project management app, Asana, to track my to do list, did weekly planning for my life every week. Same old crap I've done since middle school, just with a new style, and slightly more follow-through. This certainly helped me to not forget about things, which I think is in a whole different category from procrastination. Just because you decide to do something later, and then forget to do it later, doesn't mean you procrastinated. Later may have been the exact right time to do the thing, and then, unfortunately, I only remembered it much later. Maybe even too late. 

So, planning, organizing, time management, that helped to cut down on the forgotten tasks. However, a side effect of all this organization was that the true procrastinated tasks began to stand out in an embarrassed display, there on my app seven weeks past due. Three months past due. Six months past due. 

Yes, these were all arbitrary deadlines for my own self-imposed projects. True, I had supposedly evaluated these things a being important priorities that would improve multiple aspects of my life (certain personal financial planning tasks, and some big overhauls of our personal computers and other technology--pretty sure we are paying for more virus protection than we actually need and why are there so many devices clogging up our Wi-Fi?). In order to motivate myself, I'd reschedule these, and mark, "Rescheduled. And rescheduled 2X. Rescheduled 3X." By the time I got to 4X it was no longer motivating. And that was just the things I really thought I wanted to accomplish. Stuff like "Organize Recipes" and "Learn to play Numb Little Bug on the piano" didn't even make it to the level of getting rescheduled but just lingered in the more than one year overdue category.

Anyway, in the course of my 108 item purge, I found some overlooked Christmas chocolates, which I disposed of in the best possible way, and after eating them decided to clear out a thank you card and stamp to send my brother and his girlfriend, in appreciation for the chocolate, and out of a bit of guilt for not sending any Christmas card or gift their way. 

Before I could get it in the mailbox, I misplaced it, which sent me on a full-throttle mission to clean up all the paperwork that had accumulated over the holidays, and once that was done, and no card found, the only thing that was left was some loose printouts of various recipes, stuffed in among the cookbooks. 

You know procrastination is often just inertia, and the counterpart of inertia is momentum. Once I started, out came all the cookbooks, and the three ring binder, and the recipe box, and the new unused received free from my local Buy Nothing Facebook group, recipe-specific-binder. 

I pretty much figured "Organize Recipes" was never going to get checked off my project app. NEVER. I mean "Organize Family Photos," was a much more likely contender in my obviously misguided opinion of what is actually important to me. However, I powered through for, well, actual hours on a winter Saturday, and got the job done, just in time for tax season, when of course I will not have time to cook. 

However, I did organize all the little recipe books that came with various small appliances, and looking through one for a popcorn snack, realized that I had, in the pantry, an unused free sample of nutritional yeast I'd been meaning to try as a popcorn topping. So I made the "HERB Popcorn" recipe, which was DELICIOUS, and got one step closer to getting another item out of my pantry. 

Oh, and the thank you card was in my purse all along. 

108 Bells and a Breville Blender

I took a broken blender to my Dad's when we stopped to drop off the dog on the way to Nub's Nob for ski team weekend. "Does your Dad even expect or want this?" Matt asked, when I told him my plan. So I gave Dad a heads up, and he was, as expected, immediately enthusiastic about having a new project. I was not entirely optimistic, but I needed to get the blender out of the house, because the fact that my lovely shiny glorious Breville Blender had stopped working about 3 months after its 2 year warranty, and that the so-called "replacement part" was just a whole new pitcher and would cost almost as much as a brand new blender, was giving me rage anytime I saw or thought about that blender. Especially because maybe it was my own fault for putting parmesan cheese into the sauce too early in the blending process. And since I had to get rid of 108 items from my house before the end of the month, I packed it up and rang a bell.

But I have to go back to January 1st, to explain all this. On New Years Day, while sitting on my butt eating cookies, I decided to scroll an online article/list about New Years traditions from around the world, in hopes of finding inspiration for my New Year's Resolution, because the way my brain works, I have to have a gimmick to get motivated. About halfway down the list of 50 was a Japanese/Buddhist tradition of ringing 108 bells on New Year's Eve to clear out the old year. 

The article was quick to add this wasn't about clearing clutter from your house, but rather a symbolic release of negative desires. However, I was quick to think, "but why couldn't it be about clearing clutter?" And just like that, a plan was born. I decided to declutter, and ring a bell for each item I discarded, donated or used up. With an explanation to the family and a few loose ground rules (no credit for using ordinary items that would be replenished, but using up the "second string" items that have been hanging around forever, like the less favored scented deodorant, would qualify), the journey began. 

Yes, I literally rang a bell--part of the Christmas decor, a cutesy knick-knack my Mom had given me at some point--and tallied the items as I purged. I tried to give some attention to desires and loftier thoughts, although I have not yet studied Buddhism. Thoughts of appreciation for the things I have and of actually using the stuff I currently own, and if I can't use it, then why am I keeping it? The answer to that? It's probably genetic, and while I don't have the full hoarder impulse, I am reluctant to throw a "useful" thing away. 

But somehow, I managed to purge extra Christmas decorative items without too much guilt over whether or not it was a gift. A ludicrous quantity of pencils faced the chopping block--I don't even use pencils! I forced myself to discard any that had any type of flaw--tooth marks, too short, hard eraser, obvious cheapness, dumb cartoon characters--and cut the collection in half. I only allowed myself one bell for the pencils; taking credit for a whole dozen items felt a bit like cheating. 

By the time I decided to send the blender to Dad's house, I didn't have any expectation of a repair. I just wanted to ring another bell and get rid of that negative energy that boiled up in me every time I thought about that damned broken expensive blender. Matt asked, "How does this count as getting rid of clutter if you're just moving it to your dad's house?"

The obvious answer is that Dad's house is where clutter lives. It is where the lifetime hoard of "useful" items takes up residence. At the very least, one blender would simply disappear into the nether land of to-be-repaired TV's, speakers, tools, good-as-new-once-it's-cleaned pans, and perfectly good barn wood. Perhaps an attempt at fixing would be made. Perhaps it would join the graveyard of unfinished projects. But it would be out of my house. Not my clutter anymore. 

We returned from the long cold ski weekend with a rhubarb pie from the up north pie shop, to celebrate Dad's 88th birthday, with a dinner he made for us, of his favorite Aldi items. (Lentil soup and burnt-ends). Much to my surprise, he told me the blender was fixed. He explained about the gasket and some rubber shavings that rubbed off around the bearing, and once he cleaned it up and replaced the bearing it was just fine.

"Where did you get a bearing?" Matt asked. He still doesn't quite understand. 

"Out of a VCR" Dad said, as if this was the most normal thing ever. 

"You just had a VCR sitting around that had the same size bearing?" 

"Yeah."

Of course. Why wouldn't he? He doesn't purge his clutter and ring bells.

So now I have a working blender once again. Made a smoothie with some sad bananas and some frozen mango chunks that had been in the freezer for--ummm--years. It was delicious. 

Yes, I rang a bell for the mango.