Roots Of Procrastination

Leo Babauta's recent piece Four Antidotes To Procrastination caught my eye but, oh the irony, I put off reading it. Having read it now, I like how he admits to "procrastinating a bit more than normal, and of course it doesn't feel great." He gives good reasons why he procrastinates: fatigue, overload, uncertainty. He wants "an antidote (or two) to our procrastination, because it usually means we're not doing the meaningful work we want to do in the world. It's worth figuring out." 

In the margin, I wrote "procrastination is a sign of unhappiness. I want to investigate it so as to address what is really wrong." Babauta's piece suggests solutions to procrastination, but I'm pulled to try understanding the underlying problem of which procrastination is merely a symptom. 

Last week I very little good writing. I watched a lot of television and felt myself slipping toward depression. I wanted to work on my daily blog posts and a big writing project to which I've recently returned, but instead flipped channels, scrolled through social media, and skimmed the news. I procrastinated going to my desk to write, but procrastination, while a problem, wasn't the root problem keeping me from "doing the meaningful work." It was a symptom of something deeper. 

My issues began with getting too little sleep. I get up mornings at 4:45 but was up after ten most nights. Some people can get by on that little sleep, but not me. Lacking sleep I begin thinking of whole lists of things I have to do and spiral into anxiety. I procrastinate because I feel  I can't do the things I want to do. And all of that stems from feeling unworthy, my fundamental issue. 

Dealing with that feeling of unworthiness seems impossible, so I end up in front of television, phone, or computer. But when the wind changes, I do a few things that make a difference: I get rest, stop making lists, do one small thing, clear space, and remember the difference between work and a job. 

Rest comes first. I'm tired and wanted to go for a run, but my job drained me and it's about all I can do to sit here and type this. I'll be in bed reading by eight and asleep before nine. I'll be more ready to go tomorrow. 

Ditching the list is good. I worry that I'll forget something, but if it's important, it will get done. There are always a couple dozen things that feel like priorities, but I can do only one and I do better without the anxiety the list gives me. I'm typing this and that's enough. I don't know what's next. That can wait. Right now there's just this one thing. 

Clearing space on the desk mirrors clearing it in my mind. Imagine a desk covered with laptop, three folders, two stapled articles, a dozen pages of notes and writings, a letter from a friend, an empty coffee cup, the stapler, two library books, phone, wallet, keys, a pen, and a writer's notebook. On the shelf next are the contents of a couple more folders, some bills, and more books. That's my brain sometimes and it leaves me anxious and distracted. Clearing means picking something up and finding the right place for it until I have just the tools for one job: a notebook, laptop, and one article while in my head there is just one task on which to focus. Distractions creep in, but I'm getting better at gently clearing them away. The clear desk and mind help settle and center me. 

Then it's a matter of differentiating between work and a job. Work is choice, jobs are obligations, but it's mostly up to how I choose to approach the task. If I'm doing it because I ought to, it's a job and I'm likely to procrastinate. If I choose to do it as work, even scooping the cat litter can be rewarding and worthy of my focus though I'm not sure I can explain how. It's easier to see it with choosing to write this. There's no money or fame in it, but it's good work. My job tired me terribly today. This work is energizing. 

Procrastination isn't the enemy. Procrastination is a symptom of me fighting something, most likely the feeling I'm unworthy. Right now I'm not sure I'm worthy of publishing this. Who am I to say much of anything? Well, if nothing else, I'm someone with a clear mind (and desk) and a focus on understanding that procrastination comes from a deeper place. That might be worth sharing. 

Now, I'm ready to clear the desk and my mind of this and find more work I want to be doing. There's always the cat litter. 
 

Small Changes Over Time

I designed a piece of lined paper five years ago. I needed paper at school, had all sorts of copy paper used on only one side, and had been writing on them with a page of lines underneath, the faint shadow sort of guiding me. In Google Docs I created a sheet of lined paper, printed a test sheet, and copied it a hundred times on used copy paper. It was good.

Within two weeks I found problems with my design. Back in Google Docs I made changes, printed a page, and copied this onto more pages. I kept this design for a few months, then refined it some more. Every three months or so, as I used up the last of the copies, I refined the design. I've been using the design from May 2017 which was fine until Saturday morning when I noticed again that the date and page number lines were obscured by the clip on my clipboard. I moved those lines down, printed a test page, found that I needed space below those lines too, added iut, printed another test page and am satisfied. 

About two dozen refinements over five years have resulted in writing paper that suits my needs. Each time I think I've gotten things right and I have for that point in time. Times change. 

Refinement, small changes over time, evolving with my needs, means never being done. Each refinement responds to some new need. 

I've long believed in getting things right and giving the final answer, but being open to refinement beats the hell out of that. It encourages awareness, risk taking, and the understanding that though improvement will come in time, what I have created so far is good. 

Hasn't writing taught me this? I suppose it's something I'm still trying to learn. Funny that writing paper rather than the act of writing has been my better teacher in this. 

I have a page of my original lined paper, hundreds of pages of the design I've been using, and a page with my newest refinements. Each change has been small, but small change over time has led me to an excellent design that will get better. 

Maybe I ought to apply this to more than just the paper on which I write.

Forward March

We drove our girls to the Everson Museum courtyard where students were gathering with many parents. They went into that crowd to find their friends, one of whom helped organize the march. Stephanie and I followed to see who was there. Once we knew they were settled, I said, let's get coffee and we walked to Recess Coffee near City Hall. We passed friends heading to the march and said hellos. Maybe they wondered where the hell we were going. 

Along the way I told Stephanie how at school on Friday I had described my family life and one person said, don't even ask him because his life is perfect. Another said, perfect wife, perfect daughters, perfect pets probably. I shrugged and smiled because I really do have most everything at home I've ever wanted. Enough that we were walking away from the march to get coffee.

When we thought about things, long ago, we wanted smart kids who were independent but not desperate to get away. We wanted to be nurturing and loving. We wanted to teach and let the kids learn on their own. We knew we would have to let them go and become independent. Maybe that's everyone's plan. Stephanie though is good at doing in the moment so as to achieve those long-term goals of her parenting. She's not perfect but does parenting the way I do writing: she dives in without trepidation and knows she will find the right way. I'm no slouch at this stuff, but she's playing Major League Baseball as an all-star while I'm a good player on the farm team. 

I wanted to explain all this to anyone wondering why we were walking away. It's all part of our plan.

And I wanted coffee. 

The march was excellent. I'm proud to know Saoirse Murphy-Collins who organized and gave the my favorite speech. It wasn't just that she is one of my daughters' best friends. I'm a writer and a teacher and she did everything I would have done as a writer and everything I would have asked her to do if I was her teacher. She wrote a speech that worked at every level. It was on target, unique, delivered in a cadence and tone that responded to the crowd, and was both full and brief. I couldn't have done it any better. I'm not sure I could have done it as well. 

Our girls were up front, making a difference, chanting, cheering their friends at the lectern, and standing up for what's right. 

They didn't need us there much. Really, they just needed a ride there and if we hadn't been able to do that, they would have found another way. They appreciated us buying hot chocolate after hours in the crisp, March cold, but even that they could have taken care of without us. 

This is just what we wanted. We aren't disposable to them by any means or unappreciated, but they've learned how to take care of themselves, what sides to choose, and how to stand up. And it doesn't bother them to see in the crowd that Stephanie and I are standing in support, beaming from a distance. They're used to it having seen us there nearly every moment since they were each born. 

They'll keep marching. I can't wait to see where they get to next. 

Grief At A Distance

Reading Rick Bass's lyrical memoir Why I Came West, I thought of a writer from back here in the east, David Budbill, most famous for his poems about the imagined town of Judevine. I've read Budbill since Ben recommended him, though when he first gave me Judevine I was too green to appreciate it. I came back to Budbill through Hayden Carruth and some experience and wisdom before I appreciated enough to hear what he wrote. Happy Life and While We've Still Got Feet are precious books to me now. In my classroom, I went to the computer and searched for a new Budbill book. There is one, but there's a catch: he died in October 2016. 

I get attached to writers. Learning that Budbill had died was a shock. Realizing he had been dead seventeen months without my knowing felt like I had been a bad friend. 

No, I didn't know the man. 

I had a similar feeling when J.D. Salinger died in 2010. It was a terrible time in my life and I stood in another classroom when I learned of his death the day he died. There wasn't any guilt over having missed it, and I understood I was never going to meet or correspond with the man, but I still felt as if a friend had died. 

Driving to get gas today, I passed a car like that of a neighbor whose husband died about the same time Budbill passed. Throughout her husband's cancer I kept tabs on her online and tried to be of some use. My wife had gone through cancer treatment too. She came through bald but on the mend. The neighbor's husband was taken off life support and passed into the other life. Since then, we haven't had much contact. It's as though she lives across the world instead of a block and a half away. 

Yesterday, I spoke with a woman who has been through chemo and radiation and who prays she is free, that cancer won't come back to her. She asked what exact kind of cancer my wife had had. I didn't know. I probably seemed clueless, out of the loop. In many ways, I was. I simply believed nothing bad could happen. I went to appointments, sat with her for chemo, and fainted while the plastic surgeon removed stitches from her mastectomy, but I didn't pay attention to names of things or exact details. If felt like ignoring some of that might make it go away. That's a fool's philosophy, but it worked for us this time. 

David Budbill has died. His last book of poetry is in paperback. I'll need to get a copy. I'll want to tell Ben because he gave Budbill to me and I eventually came to treasure that gift. Is it ridiculous that I'm grieving Budbill? I am, just as I grieved Salinger, and I hope it won't diminish the neighbor who died or his wife to say I felt similarly about that too. 

I'm whistling past the graveyard here. I often have. My wife is healthy, thank heavens. I'm healthy enough to grieve a poet I met only through words on printed pages. Then again, not much brings me closer to someone than their words on a page. About the only thing, holding my wife and not letting go.