I had the whole day off from work today. Had big plans with it, too. My To Do list looked like this:
- Sleep in
- Finish website
- Edit book
- Write new chapter
I only did one of those things in the order I meant. The first one. What I actually did looked more like this:
- Sleep in
- Laundry
- Update dream journal
- Look for pictures
- Laundry
- Breakfast
- Edit website
- Play around with themes
- Clean bathroom
- Wash dishes
- Play around with themes
- Wash dishes
- Edit pictures
As you can see I wasn’t exactly sitting on my butt all day long, but neither did I do what I had set out to do. Was what I’d done important? Yes. Am I okay with not having done my To Do list? No. I have a deadline now and I want to be able to stick to it. Theoretically it should be very doable. The only question is whether or not other stuff will get in the way.
So the philosophical discussion becomes: Which is worse – procrastination or distraction? If the question is which is easier to deal with, then my answer is procrastination, because I have no one to blame but myself. While I am pretty good at multitasking most days, when I get into something I absolutely hate being distracted from it.
On the other hand, if the question is which is better overall, I’d probably say distraction. I might not finish what I originally set out to do but I will at least do something other than waste time doing nothing. That doesn’t change the face that I’d rather not be distracted from procrastinating or that procrastination is the most common distraction in the world 😉
And back to work.