or: Eliminating Excuses

I am housesitting.

It is great.

I had almost forgotten what living by myself was like.

Don’t misunderstand, I enjoy staying with other people, visiting, chats at all hours of the day and night. I realise though this is one of my procrastination excuses too.

It’s one of my favourite procrastination excuses because I’m still doing something constructive and I’m enjoying myself.

When it comes to procrastination, it’s great if the excuse can meet these criteria as it is easier to justify.

It is also harder to break.

Now that I am living by myself, I have lost an easy (and fun) excuse.

I have still been arranging to see people, however, due to the distance they are spread over Sydney, it’s easiest to visit with one or two groups a day. Any more than that becomes a bit of a logistical challenge since I am reliant on public transport and I am also exercising in the mornings.

Exercising is a habit that I want to get back. I have missed running.

Exercising while traveling has never been a strength of mine. I start with the best of intentions and even pack my gear. My follow-through has been lousy. I’m usually too tired in the mornings (due to a late night prior) or there is a breakfast catch-up with someone or wherever I am staying has great breakfasts and I can’t resist a good breakfast.

Many would suggest that I exercise later in the day. I have tried this over my life and it doesn’t work for me because it really is too easy to make excuses. The later in the day it is, the worse my willpower is. It is the time where I am more likely to be catching up with people or tired from the day and given how clumsy I can be when I run, it’s best I don’t do that when I’m tired.

Jumping out of bed, putting on my running gear straightaway before I’ve even had the chance to think about being awake, works best for me. No need for willpower, it’s not awake yet either. I also love this time of the morning when the air is fresh, wildlife is starting to wake-up (the lorikeet was seen earlier this week) and I get a lot of ideas while I’m walking or running. I have missed these and they have started to flood my head again after the exercise I have been doing already.

Welcome back creativity!

Structuring my day this way also frees time for writing and fixing the websites I am currently working on.

It also means for a chunk of the day, I don’t have an excuse for not doing these things. Assuming I’ve been to sleep early enough the night before and don’t have tiredness as my new excuse.

I am trying to avoid being tired as another excuse and too many visits in a day becomes tiring when they are spread out all over the place and I’m spending more time in transit than seeing people.

Tired is a boring excuse though the reasons for becoming tired can be fun. I don’t like this procrastination excuse for that reason. It seems like a cop-out.

The other aspect solo housesitting is helping is my eating and drinking. Being by myself for more meals means that I eat more healthily and better sized meals rather than what tends to happen when I go out or am eating with others. This is partly willpower, partly the size portions that are served and partly peoples’ insistence that I eat more.

When did everything become so large? I’m not missing dessert. There are enough sweet fruits in season at the moment to keep me happy.

I have also not bought myself any Smith’s Salt n Vinegar Chips. My last packet was consumed over Christmas and I’m not buying another until I’m leaving the country. They are addictive and there should be a warning label on the packet! This has nothing to do with procrastination and everything to do with willpower. They are my weakness.

Once I am in the habit of eating, exercising and working like this again, it is a lot easier to maintain and excuses become unnecessary. Even the fun procrastination excuses will no longer be required even though I will still be visiting people.

I think my downfall was not setting up my website before I left HK which has then impacted some other aspects of my life. There are a few other reasons why it’s not done yet but they have nothing to do with procrastination and are more to do with changing my mind about various aspects of it including who my target audience is and what product/s I should focus on for it. It’s important to get this part right from the start as changing it later is a pain.

So, now that I’m housesitting by myself, I have no excuses to get these things sorted out.

Just a moment while I make myself a cup of tea…

* Thanks to The Breakfast Club for the title to this post and if you’re feeling nostalgic, here’s the video from 1987. As a piece of trivia, Madonna formed this band with a musician she was seeing at the time and played drums, guitar and sang until the early 1980s.