PROCRASINATION RULES - OK!

Last week a most unwelcome guest visited me. Mr. Procrastination himself! On Sunday, I happily made my regular list of things I wanted to accomplish in the week ahead, and then spent a joyful ten minutes or so distributing the tasks between the next seven days (if, like me, you are a working-at-home-mom, you'll understand the necessity to program all seven days into your working calendar) and then, having switched off the computer, I went to bed all motivated for the week to come.

Monday morning arrived, and after my chores were complete, and the baby settled for his nap, I switched on the computer, eager to start on a women's history article. That's when I noticed all the files on the desktop. I decided that I really couldn't work amongst all that on-screen clutter, so I set about moving things around. By the time this was accomplished the baby was awake and women's history shelved for the day.

The entire week has been like this. I would have been able to complete all my chores if only I hadn't had to go to the bank; I would have done the laundry but didn't have any washing detergent; and I would have completed all my writing on schedule if it hadn't been so necessary to rearrange the books on my bookshelf, and do a housekeeping exercise on my Netscape browser (have you ever noticed how these links breed when you aren't looking?). I realize of course that if I had spent time doing my chores and writing instead of wasting time doing other things, (like muttering about how much I had to do!) they wouldn't now be sitting on the top of my "to do" list for this week inked in red!

Now I'm faced with another new week, a new chance to get things right. An opportunity to catch up on last weeks squandered time - but first I've just noticed another small but urgent job! There are 546 messages in my email in-box and I must sort through them in case there's anything important.....

Katie-Anne, 2001