procrastination and the lack of a 2019 bookshelf.

This month I realized a disheartening truth about myself: I’m a procrastinator.

It’s taken me quite some time to admit to it, since the picture of the Julie in my head is assuredly not the type of person who procrastinates. How could I be a procrastinator when I’m organized and Type A? Also how does it explain the fact that I don’t procrastinate on everything, just on some things?

Three things I don’t procrastinate on are making decisions for our renovation, meal planning for the week, and tidying up the house.

Three things I do procrastinate on: entering my expenditures in our budget app, helping Amie with her weekly IEW papers, and grading math homework. Also: responding to text messages, scrubbing the mildew in the shower, and apparently as of 2019, writing blog posts. And definitely, definitely exercising.

Case in point: I just realized that it’s the middle of November and I haven’t written one single Bookshelf post this year.

How sad. I love Bookshelf posts!

But in order to write one, I need to remember back over what I’ve read this year, and I’ve been neglecting to update my Goodreads app since March.

When I considered these two simple tasks in the last months, they felt like an impossible mountain of work I’d like to avoid at all costs. So I avoided them. But even as I avoided them, they nagged at me.

Here’s the crazy thing about procrastination: it stinks. It really, really does.

I hate the way it makes me feel, like a vague cloud hanging over my head.

The actual chore I’m avoiding is never as bad as putting off the chore for hours or days or weeks. Never!

And the feeling of completing tasks is wonderfully satisfying and empowering.

So why do I procrastinate?

I honestly don’t know. But I’ve noticed this month that the pile of things I’m habitually putting off seems to be growing, not shrinking, even though my kids are older and more self-sufficient than ever, and I ought to have more energy to do tasks and write here on the blog (which, by the way is something I enjoy doing).

I’m reading Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, by Jon Acuff, and it’s excellent. Actually, it’s this book that made me realize just how pervasive procrastination is in my life right now. It’s like a contagious disease: when I cave into it in one area of my life, it latches onto another.

One of Acuff’s tips to reaching your goals is to “Choose What You’ll Bomb.” He says it’s the great myth of American culture that we can have everything and do everything. That’s simply not true. We can’t have it all. We can’t do it all. We are succeeding at things but also bombing other things all the time.

The question is: are we bombing the right things?

Acuff gives two examples from his own life: Choosing to bomb having an immaculately kept yard back when his kids were toddlers, and choosing to bomb watching shows on Netflix so he’ll have more time to write in the evenings.

I love this.

When was the last time you heard someone say they were failing at keeping current with Netflix shows? And that they were doing it on purpose!

Acuff’s insight helped me stop complaining about feeling stressed and take a good, honest look at my life right now — at what I’m succeeding at and what I’m bombing. It helped me understand my confusion over the fact that I don’t procrastinate on everything. Nobody does.

I never imagined that the solution to my procrastination woes is not to try to do more stuff. It’s to fail at the things that aren’t top priority in this season. And the question isn’t just, “What things can slide right now?”, but “What things should slide?” Even good, fun things. Even things that help people and make them happy.

Or, as David has been telling me for years, “To say yes to one thing means you’re saying no to something else.”

So then, what are things I really need to do consistently?

To answer this question, I started by jotting some lists. What do I feel like I’m doing a good job at? And what am I dropping the ball on?

Making these lists required a level of honesty I haven’t applied to my daily decision-making before.

For instance: you know what I’m doing a good job at? Running errands.

Somehow it seems that I’m perpetually jumping in the van and driving to the store for printer paper (Target), or gluten-free waffles (Trader Joe’s), or the ground beef I forgot to include in my grocery list so I can make shepherd’s pie for dinner tomorrow (Publix). If you have six people in your family, I guarantee that at all times someone needs new socks, or jeans because they just had a major growth spurt, or a dress shirt for the event on Friday night. It all feels necessary. It all feels dire.

On these errands, I end up spending more money than I should spend, and since both Target and Trader Joe’s are 15-20 minutes away and I typically shop in after-school traffic, these “quick trips” without fail eat up two hours from my afternoon.

Also, I’m a Highly Sensitive Person, so the the stimulation from walking through a store and making decisions leaves me tired when I get back home. So tired, apparently, that I can’t pick up my phone and spend 10 seconds entering those purchases into Goodbudget, so that David and I know how much money we have left to spend in our Home/Clothes category this month.

I started using Instacart for weekly grocery delivery this fall and thought it would solve all my problems. It’s a truly amazing luxury. Grocery shopping is my least favorite chore in life, and getting to avoid it each Friday or Saturday is really a game-changer.

But somehow, even with this new convenience, I’m still perpetually tired and also procrastinating on the important things (and, come to think of it, still running to the store twice a week). Jon Acuff’s book is helping me see that this is because I’m not being intentional about filling the time that grocery delivery is saving me with the right things.

My main problem wasn’t actually having to grocery shop, it was neglecting to order my time and energy well.

Okay, what else?

Another thing I’m doing a good job with is spending time with women from church and scheduling play dates for my kids. This one is hard. My kids are very social and I’m very social. We love people, and we especially love having people in our home. We enjoy the flexibility that homeschooling has afforded us over the years, which means that in the past we’ve actually been able to spend lots of time with our friends throughout the week.

But right now I can’t do it weekly (or multiple times a week), not if I want the social energy to hear about my husband’s day when he comes home from work, or time in the afternoon to exercise, or to be present in our school day instead of rushing off to wipe down the bathroom sinks for guests.

I need to exercise regularly, but just those two things alone — running errands and getting together with people on weekdays — takes away afternoon time for exercise.

So. Can I tell you a common theme I noticed when I completed my lists?

The things I’m succeeding at by and large are things that have to do with people-pleasing or managing my image. Things that are noticed.

And the things I’m bombing are the less-noticed tasks that don’t earn me affirmation or attention (translate: won’t make me feel good about myself).

If I choose to bomb running an unnecessary errand tomorrow afternoon to buy ground beef (and who knows what else) in favor of a walk, then I will bomb making shepherd’s pie for dinner and bitterly disappointment the son who requested it. That feels like torture to me.

Writing all this out proved what my psychiatrist mentioned in a routine appointment last week: “You have a problem with people-pleasing, don’t you?”

Umm. Yes. Yes I do.

Can I just stop right now and tell you how thankful I am for the people God puts in my life who graciously point out my blind spots? That was a loving thing for him to say. And for my husband to say the week before. And my friend Kelly the week before that.

So it’s on me now. No more excuses. No more complaining about being over-committed and over-stressed.

Just honesty and repentance, because that’s what people-pleasing is: a sin. It’s caring first about what humans think, and second about what God thinks.

I’m so thankful that in Christ I have hope to overcome this addiction to people-pleasing and performance. He’s given me great freedom in these areas over the course of my adult life. But there’s more work to be done. In faith, this time next year I will be more free from these idols than I am today.

I also have hope of breaking the bad habit of procrastination, one task and one day at a time.

But I’m absolutely accountable to work hard at it. It’s not enough to write this blog post and say wistfully, “I need to stop procrastinating.” Or to tell my friends in the name of being transparent that I really struggle with procrastination.

No, I’m responsible for my choices, and I need to quit complaining and make a plan.

Here’s my plan for this week:

To sit down this afternoon with my weekly calendar and actually schedule in all the priorities first (not just write them in a list in the Notes margin): Read my Bible and pray. When to start school (and turn my phone on airplane mode). Exercise. Check my phone and answer texts. Check my laptop and answer emails. Write my Bookshelf blog post. Greet my husband and ask about his day. Read the nonfiction book I’m plugging away at.

I’ll let you know how the plan goes.

In the meantime, I spent an hour entering book titles into Goodreads last night and felt victorious. Bring on the next blog post!