Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
First Post
Hi I'm Rexroth and I've waited a long time for my first post. Here it is.
My main problem at the moment is that I have a piece of legal/admin work to do. It is large and important and worth a lot of money to me. I have left it for several years and if I leave it much longer I will be out to time i.e. the law says that I will have left it too long and will no longer allow me to pursue the matter. My lawyer says that I should do it myself as he would be too expensive and the matter is more of administration than of law. He is right. I have the skills and the knowledge and I just can't seem to get started. Also it it not something that anyone can really help me with as it is complex and detailed and I have all the information.
This is holding up my life, or I suppose the truth is that I am by not dealing with it.
Advice, guidence and support welcome. I have been reading this site for a few months.
Regards Rexroth
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Clarity at last
I've spent only a short time on the project but already it is so clear what I need to do. When I started I thought I had to sort out and perfectly file all the eight boxes of paper. Now I know I don't. Today I sorted out the various court and tribunal actions I can take and the information I need for each. It amounts to, person A five claims all using the small claims procedure at the County Court. It would also be a good idea if I find out if he is still in the country before I get too excited. Person B and C I need to seek a decision of a tribunal on two matters. And that is it. It might or might not sound simple but it is and it is doable. Whether I succeed in any or all of the claims I don't know but my life is not on hold any longer.
And to think how I felt only a few days ago...
In gratitude Rexroth
WTG Rexroth!
You're doing a fantastic job!
fanTAStic!
I'm so glad to hear that! Keep it up!
wow!
court stuff is the hardest
if youre making mincemeat out of this, theres hope for all of us
keep on!
congratulations!
That's wonderful. I'm glad to hear it! It must feel like a huge weight off your mind.
Thank you friends
Thanks everyone.
Today I made what I feel is a breakthrough. I visualized the whole thing and spend a hour doing just that and praying about it. I forgave all of the opposition and myself and feel very much more free and able to go ahead. The mass of information i.e. eight bankers boxes of files now don't feel intimidating. I know the various applications I need to make to a tribunal and to a court and the information I need in order to do so. I have to find and colate the information and check it carefully. It's a big job but a doable one. Much of the files are totally irrelevant.
Thanks for support and suggestions:
I have in the past asked people to sit with me and they have done so. Now they are so fed up with it and me that I don't want to ask them again. I can take some of the work to another site and work on it and that is a really good idea. It's what I did when I was studying and when writing a book.
Overall I want a solution and the matter finished. I have suffered over 20 years of abuse over this and lost a lot of money. Also my part in it, at first, was to be legalistic and pigheaded. Because I changed there was no reason that they should.
Finally I need to get back to DA. I gained so much from my membership of that fellowship.
In gratitude Rexroth
WTG!
It takes a lot to take that first step!
visualization is powerful
I mentioned visualization in one of the articles I posted, but it's so powerful a tool maybe I should devote a whole article to it. Good for you for grabbing a tool and using it!
WTG Rexroth
You've taken huge steps already! Make sure you pace yourself, and keep starting, keep starting, and one day you'll be finished!
Amazing what visualization can do for you.
That's tool I'd like to explore more.
Congrats on what you've done so far.
Visualization
Yes it's strange I've been so resitant to practising it. I do the negative stuff with no effort but when someone suggests I visualise something positive I just don't want to do it.
Negative stuff
Do you know what I just realized my usual use for visualization is?
Practising arguments in my head.
:?
I think I might want to start using this tool for other, more positive things.
The sedentary boulder of my inertia
is starting to rumble just a bit - in response to your progress eight time zones away. Not moving on the hardest stuff yet, but rumbling. Thanks and keep it up.
funny title
I feel like a sedentary boulder of inertia right now, too, because it's raining and I don't want to walk to the gym in the rain.
just singing...
yeah but those fingers are dancing across that keyboard like gene kelly tapping through the puddles
Hi Rexroth..
I see you're online. Did you make any progress? I won't offer many new tips beacuse the others have offered great advice, but just read a few of the articles here - I posted some tips for getting started once, which Pro put in as an article. One thing the others didn't mention but I find extremely helpful is visualisation. Positive visualisation about how you want to feel, and how you will feel when you have overcome this hurdle, can be very powerful incentives to get moving!
Good luck!!
Hi Milo and thanks. I did
Hi Milo and thanks. I did make progress and have just posted my todo list for today. At the moment I feel that I should be doing about six different things and that is not possible.
Regards Rexroth
6 different things..
No, you're right, although it's possible, it's proven to be rather ineffective. It's best to focus on one thing for a fixed amount of time and you'll make more progress.
Where is your list? I can't see it...
Found it..
Oh, I found it.
Best to post a Monday 11th Sept THEN reply to it with your to-do. That makes the start of the post relevant to everyone :).
I fixed it
I fixed up the day thread starter and posted an explanation for Rexroth (and other new members).
do it for 15 minutes
Hi Rexroth. See if you can get yourself to commit to working on it for 15 minutes. Set a timer, and bookend it on the forum here. Just 15 minutes. You can do anything for 15 minutes, right?
Right... only it didn't feel
Right... only it didn't feel right. Tried to post on bookend forum and it didn't work. Anyway I've just finished 15 minutes work on it and I feel that I've broken the barrier of starting. I'm not doing any more today and I will deal with tomorrow when it comes. The whole issue is very emotional and also important for me to face and deal with. Thanks I appreciate your advice.
Rexroth
yay, Rexroth!!
Big congratulations on doing 15 minutes!!! That's outstanding!! :)
How come you couldn't post on the bookend board? Posting it posting - you just select the board.
Thank you pro. Yes posting
Thank you pro. Yes posting is posting and I'll get used to it. I'm dyslexic so sometimes I make mistakes. What I think I did was to press the preview button not the post button. Anyway that it. I was also a bit worked up and that is an understatement. Now I feel much calmer and am resisting the temptation to take the files out and spend most of the night working on them. Tomorrow will do as I'd done what I set out to do today. Regards Rexroth
preview and post buttons
I suspect that every one of us here has clicked Preview and then forgotten to click Post at least once. Unfortunately, there's no way to turn off the requirement to preview posts before posting.
Press my buttons at your own risk
Maybe this is off-topic, but I have to say, now that i have figured it out, this is the best-operating bulletin board i have ever seen.
deleted the dupe
I've double posted a couple times recently, too. I deleted the duplicate post.
Six Ideas
Rexroth, Welcome! I am also new here, maybe this is my 4th day here. Has already produced a huge turnaround in my life. Being able to work versus not!!
Look, regarding the legal/admin matter - I fully understand how emotion tied up with it makes it impossible to do. I havent tried Pro's bookend-and-do-just-15-minutes-on-a-distasteful-task suggestion - but I will.
What HAS worked for me, are the following:
(1) hire someone - an errand-runner, or an unemployed friend of a friend or in-law (not birth family) to sit with you patiently and work for a preset block of time
(2)pick up the whole mess and go to a coffeehouse and work there. (act businesslike, like what you're doing is important!)
(3) you can do the same thing at a law school library
(4)or at a photocopy store (here they're called Kinko's and have free desks to work at, with connections for your laptop)
(5)as a last resort you could do it at a friend's place of business, in the back room. or with a friend who writes or works at home. but it would have to be a quiet, serious friend of course.
Please do continue attacking this, and find out what works. This kind of undone project is not primarily important because of the money you will get, but because of the energy and self-esteem that it leeches from you, so long as you allow it to linger. We would never tolerate a loathsome leech feeding on us, once we recognize what it is. We would pull it off immediately, or use a cigartte lighter on its backside, whatever - not for GAIN, but out of a righteous disgust.
Obviously, you can see that you have struck a chord within me here. As I said, I have a similar situation. So, if you start tackling this regularly, and posting here, you will be helping me. Seriously.
(6) One more option, if it's not happening: I could partner with you, with me attacking my project and you attacking yours, simultaneously in different time zones, once a week.
Ok, enough for now. As they say in the hip-hop world, "peace out."
working in coffee houses
>pick up the whole mess and go to a coffeehouse and work there.
I've done this frequently, and it's often the only way I can get myself to work. I think it's something about being around other people, even though I'm not talking to them.
I know all the coffee houses and libraries within a half mile radius of my apartment with free wifi. :)
Coffee houses
I don't seem to be able to do the coffee house thing. Don't have a laptop for one thing, even if I did wifi isn't free, and I don't seem to be able to concentrate with all the noise around me.
I do this
It really works. I won't add anything else to the suggestions Rexroth, because too much choice can throw some people into procrastination too! But you've definitely got my support!
WTG on taking the first few steps!
Thanks for support and
Thanks for support and helpful suggestions. At the moment I'm overwhelmed by feelings about all of this. Will see what tomorrow brings. Rexroth