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.
It is a Big World. Why not try these things?
My friend just drove a car around the world. So there's that.
If I live according to my stated philosophy of looking at options and choosing to go toward what I might regret the least, I might take advantage of an opportunity that seems to be before me. I might go toward getting my Masters in Datascience. Hah!
I know it's preposterous now, but maybe that's how anything starts. With the imagining. So write it down. I've been having conversations with people. I've been getting vaguely excited about ideas and outcome. What have I said? I could maybe be a person with that degree all networked up with people thinking about these things and building things that could be useful.
Incidentally, I might be capable of cultivating my health and my wealth, while possibly being in a relationship with someone who could be integrated with that world.
It would be a lot of work. Yes indeed.
And lord knows I love a life of ease and have so many limitations. I guess I am writing this down so I can look at it outside myself and judge whether it is reasonable to take steps.
I could maybe.
As opposed to staying put in a job that is not so bad, doing stuff by the skin of my teeth and skirting expertise and becoming someone who can only talk about these ideas superficially, not have the clout or actual ability to implement or recommend, who will no doubt watch as someone else comes in to handle those realms, realms which I intuitively know will be vital in my professional world. Maybe.
Is it ego to want that? If so, is that necessarily bad? Is it out of balance with who I am really? Am I an artist, a mathematician, a programmer, or a philosopher? Or am I just barely a professional designer who can hardly get to work on time or complete the projects in my queue?
Posting now. Just this idea. Eeeeek!
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P-A website ... new year, new start?
I thought I'd piggy back this thread to pick up on some of the discussion on the current technological issues with this website's noticeboard.
I do take on board that we are currently a small fellowship with it seems not many (myself included!) with strong enough recovery from compulsive procrastination.
But I'd like to take a moment to vision a lovely, functioning, prosperous new P-A website, to welcome in the new year 2015!
This could still have the current noticeboard/website's wonderful content available as an archive, but it could also be a fresh start to support oldtimers but also importantly newcomers, as succinctly summarised in our Tradition 5 - "Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the compulsive procrastinator who still suffers".
I will pray to HP around this vision ... ("Thy" will not mine be done).
Any further thoughts on this vision most welcome!
recovery then website
My view based on my own recovery is this:
I would rather start a new PA website than actually recover from procrastination!
You all may or may not be the same as me.
I have committed to myself that i will work on this website when i have SPARE time AFTER completing my main job work on time, and when my bills are paid on time, car/house/yard maintenance is performed on time, and i am spending adequate time with my family. IF i have time left over, after living in this mode, for, say 6 months, then it would be SPARE time. Otherwise it would be procrastination.
To quote Pro who founded this site in her original article: "If you give a procrastinator a time management tool, they will just fiddle with the tool."
Recover from procrastination first. Then worry about taking my recovery to others.
What do you think? How is it in your own life?
fall down seven times, get up eight - japanese proverb
@Movingalong
Hi movingalong!
Just wanted to thank you for explaining our options re: 12 step group, website, etc. I appreciate all the time and effort you've devoted to PA.
Because I am generally avoidant of making phone calls, I found it hard to continue doing phone meetings, and when my employment issue was solved for over a year, I didn't want to deal with anymore procrastination issues ... so I went MIA for a good part of that time, and now being unemployed yet again has brought me back here to face my job-related avoidance issues.
I think starting an actual AA-type group before a website is a great idea since a website would require that level of foundation to support members.
Cheers :) RisingUp
RE: P-A website ... new year, new start?
Hi Jack,
Thanks for posting this ... some of us earlier in the week had also brought up this topic in the check-in thread, and I had the same thought about maybe migrating this site to a working new technology forum, and making a link to this one as an archive. I'll have to read Movingalong's post about this ... but I do think a lot of us need some more recovery and this would be a helpful way to do it.
RisingUp
re: new creative ideas, and PA website
@Jack ... good idea to move this discussion to this thread. This is as good a place as any, seeing as the tech issues won't allow us to start new threads.
For anyone/everyone who didn't see my post on the other thread ... I'll copy it over here:
There have not been any new members admitted to this website since Dec. 2, 2012. Two years since the last new website member. The owner cannot edit thread-titles or start new threads, either. Why? because the website is broken.
This is a privately-owned website whose owner donates whatever time&energy he/she can to maintaining it. The owner is "one of us" -- a comrade struggling to overcome alongside us; and also has debilitated health. The owner is doing the best he/she can. We are all guests here on his/her website; and I'm grateful for what's been begun here -- it's saved me in so many ways.
The website is primarily a peer-support website. There are some 12step members here -- but it's not run as a 12step site via the Traditions. What we all have in common is that we are all anonymous and want to recover. Some use peer support and some use the 12step approach. The owner explained the ownership policies here:
http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/3035
Regarding functioning as a 12step organization: As a struggling 12stepper myself, I would say that there aren't (yet) enough of us with enough 12step recovery from procrastination to have the time/energy to found a full real 12step fellowship. So we having been making do with what we have here, imperfectly. Most of the 12step recovery has happened via the PA phone meetings.
The reason for the brokenness of the current website, as Clement outlined elsewhere, is that the entire website cannot function and has to be rebuilt due to its configuration being built in December 2005 on a website program/system that became outdated in 2012. This is nobody's fault. It is what it is. But we have no power to fix it.
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That's what I said on the other thread.
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To add some thoughts here ... As you can see by the thread I linked to with the ownership policies, the name "procrastinators anonymous" and this website are privately owned. Again, the link is at:
http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/3035
Please read that link so you can follow. I don't think replying there will help, as it's an old post and not monitored anymore, but that policy is still in effect.
As you can see from that, this website was created by its owner *primarily* as a privately-owned peer support forum. That was its intent upon creation. It will remain that way, and that is not up to any of us.
Anyone wanting to form a completely steps-and-traditions-oriented website can do so, but we'd need to choose another name for the fellowship. (As you can see from reading the link, the 'procrastinators anonymous' name belongs to the owner of this website.).
When and if we ever made a new website, we would need to respectful of any materials that might be already copywritten as belonging to the current website. We would need to be respectful and give credit and remain in sisterhood with -- and gratitude for -- the current website. There would not be any competition -- we would express only love and respect for the founder of the old site.
There have been several members of the phone meetings working together to discuss how to proceed. We have been discussing this (on and off) at 6 business meetings over a period of 8 or 9 months. After prayer/reflection, the conclusion is that the first step is contacting AA headquarters for advice on how to start a *real* 12step fellowship. We start with the fellowship *first*, and then create a website *from* the fellowship.
We had also been discussing how to strengthen/stablize the somewhat erratic/sporadic phone meeting attendance ... but we cannot put new threads/announcements here on the broken website, because it's broken.
And we can't really rally the phone meetings yet because ... again the realization was that we need to create a real 12step fellowship first.
Trying to increase the infrastructure of the phone meetings or creating a new website ... whilst not having an actual 12step fellowship ... seemed to be putting the cart before the horse.
Anyone is welcome to participate in the discussions. Our phone meetings are held on an INTERNATIONAL phone line -- a different local phone number for each country where miraculously it works that all dial into the same line simultaneously. For example, those in the UK dial into the UK phone number; whilst those in Brazil dial into the Brazil phone number; etc; but all type in the same access code; and all are brought inside the same virtual "room" together. Click on this link to get the international phone numbers:
http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/5006
Our first priority is to create a full 12step fellowship. To address that aim, some of our phone meeting participants have approached AA headquarters in New York for advice/mentorship on how to start a new 12step fellowship.
We have not had a telephone business meeting about this in a while, as those volunteers are still gathering information. As soon as there is something to report, there will be a business meeting on the phoneline.
new website?
Howdy folks,
Id love to know who else is interested in/working on the formation of the fellowship and the proposed new website. Setting up a new site or a new message board forum is really pretty easy. Given that we are a geographically diverse group, I would think that establishing the fellowship and starting a new website would both go together, rather than it being a case of one before the other... just my 2 cent...
Please feel free to drop me an email and lukelucasholland AT gmail.com
Thanks!
Lucas
procrastinate by recoverying from procrastination.
Someone (i forget who) wrote, many articles on the internet about procrastination have been written by people while they were procrastinating something else more important.
Procrastinators will often jump at the chance to start a new procrastination website, eg, instead of getting their regular work completed on time, paying bills on time, keeping up with house/yard/car maintenance, going to regular physicals and dental appts, completing their daily self-care, etc.
Just be wary of the procrastination tempter, it is sly
fall down seven times, get up eight - japanese proverb
@ Gwen
I can relate SO MUCH to your post. I am struggling with similar questions.
(although I am wondering how your friend found a car that drove underwater ;) lol!)
@ Gwen D
Sending you hope and encouragement.